


Your Name

by lostariels



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodyswap, F/F, body swapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-01 04:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10180625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostariels/pseuds/lostariels
Summary: After an experiment gone wrong, Lena wakes up the next morning in Kara's body in National City, assuming it's a dream.Meanwhile, Kara wakes up in Lena's body in Metropolis, also thinking she's dreaming.They begin switching bodies intermittently, not realising what's happening until the people close to them start pointing out how strange they've been acting recently.Slowly, Kara and Lena come to terms with the fact that they're sharing bodies with a stranger in a different city. Communicating through notes and memos, they both help keep each other's life on track, trying to help each other along the way.As they learn more about each other, they grow closer, developing a special connection. Desperately wishing they could meet, they seek each other out, but something other than distance is keeping them apart.Based on the film Your Name.





	1. Chapter 1

            The blast took Lena off her feet, flinging her across the room. Her head bounced off the floor as she landed, and she winced as she pulled herself to her feet, rubbing the back of her head. The kryptonite had burst apart, shards flying towards her as the force of the explosion knocked her over.

 

            Looking down, Lena could see tiny rips in her dress, and a few cuts were stinging from where the kryptonite had pierced her skin. She looked at the mess she had made, sighing as she took in the twisted pieces of metal.

 

            “Voice memo forty-five: green kryptonite has been found to explode once the aether propulsion overheats at-” Lena looked down at her watch before speaking into the voice recorder, “five minutes and twenty-three seconds post ignition.”

 

            Sighing, Lena switched off the recorder and packed up. She was done for the day; she’d try again tomorrow. Disappointed, Lena left the lab at LexCorp. She’d been working on this for months, and she had thought that perhaps the kryptonite would have been the big breakthrough she was looking for.

 

            It was early hours in the morning when she got back to her apartment. Exhausted, she collapsed onto her bed, too tired to finish the paperwork she hadn’t had time to do at the office today.

 

* * *

 

 

            Kara had been rushed off her feet all day. Besides the fact that she had been running around interviewing people, she had also had to rush off to catch an escaped criminal, rescue a cat from a tree, and put out a fire.

 

            She’d just managed to fall asleep when her sister, Alex, had called her in to the DEO for her to save the day again. Grumbling, Kara had suited up, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

 

            It was early hours in the morning when she finally got home. Kara flew in through her open window. Stripping off her Supergirl costume, she slipped into some pyjamas and collapsed straight back into bed, hoping that there were no other emergencies tonight; she was exhausted.

 

* * *

 

 

            Lena woke up to the beeping horns of cars and the hustle and bustle of the city. That shouldn’t have been right; her apartment was practically soundproof. She opened her eyes, stretching as she stared up at the white ceiling.

 

            Rolling over, she sat up and planted her feet on the floor.

 

            This wasn’t her apartment.

 

            Frowning in confusion, she looked around. It was a homely place, smaller than her own apartment but more comfortable, and lived in. It was the kind of place you could come home to after a long day, wrap yourself up in a blanket, and read with a cup of tea.

 

            Lena looked down at herself.

 

            These weren’t her pyjamas, and she didn’t remember being so tanned. In fact, she distinctly remembered her mom criticising her for looking so pale just last week. Standing up, Lena walked around the apartment, frowning as she took in the unfamiliar furniture and decorations.

 

            Opening the door to the bathroom, Lena slipped inside and let out a loud scream when she saw the unfamiliar face staring back at her. It was a stranger’s face. She had never seen it before in her life, and she had no idea how it was staring back at her right now.

 

            Scared blue eyes stared at her in the mirror, and a small part of Lena had time to admire the colour amidst her confusion. Golden curls fell past the girl’s shoulders, and the softness of her face suggested that she smiled a lot.

 

 _It’s a dream_ , Lena told herself. _You’re dreaming._

 

            The sound of a knock on the door broke Lena’s concentration.

 

            Quickly, she walked back through the apartment and opened the front door. A woman with short brown hair stood there smiling.

 

            “Coffee,” she said, handing Lena a takeaway cup as she walked inside.

 

            “Oh, thanks,” Lena mumbled, looking from the cup to the woman, and back at the cup again. She took a sip of the coffee, not knowing what else to do. She wrinkled her nose slightly. It was too sweet for her liking, she had never liked caramel in her coffee, or any other kind of fancy flavourings.

 

            “I didn’t expect you to be up this early, I thought I’d come and wake you up,” the woman told her, seating herself at one of the stools in the kitchen. Lena walked over and sat opposite her. The woman stared at her, a crease forming between her eyebrows when Lena didn’t reply.

 

            “Kara are you okay?” she asked.

 

            Lena blinked in surprise. So dream her had a different name too.

 

            Kara.

 

            She liked it.

 

            “Oh, yeah, everything’s fine, I’m just … tired,” Lena replied, trying to act normal. Even though she had no idea what normal was like for dream her. Although, Lena thought, normal would be whatever she she made it. After all, if this was her dream, and she was aware it was a dream, she should be able to manipulate it. She remembered reading that about lucid dreaming.

 

            “So J’onn wants you to come in today, Winn thinks he might’ve found something,” the woman told her. The names meant nothing to Lena but she nodded anyway.

 

            “I’ll um, get ready now then, we can go in together,” Lena said, putting her coffee down and heading towards the bedroom. All of the clothes were on racks, and Lena rifled through them, trying to find something acceptable to wear. What kind of job did she have anyway?

 

            There were dozens of button up shirts so Lena picked one at random, grabbing a pair of pants whilst she was at it. After a quick shower, she walked out into the kitchen.

 

            “What’re you wearing?” the woman exclaimed, taking in Lena’s outfit.

 

            “Um, clothes?” Lena replied hesitantly, second-guessing her choice.

 

            “We’re going to the DEO, not to the bar,” the woman said, giving Lena an exasperated look, “where’s your suit?”

 

            Lena’s face went blank as she looked around the apartment as she tried to think of something to say or spot this suit the woman was talking about.

 

            “Earth to Kara,” the woman said, waving her hands in front of her.

 

            Blinking in surprise, Lena shook her head, “um, I don’t know.”

 

            “I swear, it’s like you’re half asleep,” the woman sighed, “make yourself some breakfast, I’ll find your suit.”

 

            Lena opened all of the cupboards, hunting down something to eat. She found a box of cereal and pulled some milk out of the fridge. This would do.

 

            The woman returned a moment later with a red and blue costume, holding it out for Lena. She took it off her, and quickly ate the rest of the cereal before going back into the bathroom.

 

            Stripping off all of her clothes, Lena stepped into the blue and red costume. A cape? What was this, some fantasy roleplay costume? She stared down at the S on her chest, frowning. She knew that symbol, it was almost exactly the same as Superman’s. How many times had she seen him on her TV in Metropolis?

 

            She stepped into the red boots that the woman had handed her too, and walked back out to the kitchen.

 

            “Ready?” the woman asked, waiting with her hands on her hips. Lena nodded and made to follow after her.

 

            “What’re you doing? Use the window,” the woman said, pointing towards the nearest one. Lena struggled to find words for a moment as she looked from the window to the woman. Surely she didn’t expect Lena to scale the side of the building.

 

            “Oh, um, right, yes,” Lena stammered, opening the nearest one. The ground was a dizzying height below them and Lena gulped.

 

            “I’ll meet you at the DEO,” the woman shouted over her shoulder as she walked out of the apartment. Lena tried to protest but the door slammed shut, cutting her off.

 

            She stared at the ground and took a deep breath. Clutching onto the windowsill, Lena slowly lowered herself out of the window, careful not to look down. This new body was bigger than she was used to, and she thought she could reach the next windowsill, maybe.

 

            She probed beneath her with her foot, looking for something to grip on to, and looked down, seeing nothing but open air below. Panicking, Lena accidentally let go of the ledge and started to fall. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the ground to rush up and met her.

 

            But it never came.

 

            Opening her eyes slowly, Lena saw the reflection of dream her floating in mid-air in the window opposite her. All of the air rushed out of her lungs as she looked down.

 

            She was flying!

 

* * *

 

 

            Kara woke up to the loud, incessant beeping of an alarm. That was strange, she couldn’t remember setting an alarm last night. She had been planning on a lie in, after the busy night she had had.

 

            Groaning, she rolled over, spreading her arms out wide, enjoying the peace and quiet. They didn’t touch the edge of the bedlike they usually did. Opening her eyes, Kara looked at the wide expanse of the bed laying beyond the reach of her fingertips.

 

            Sitting up, she clutched the blankets to her chest, staring around at the huge room. She wasn’t in her own apartment that was for sure. It was dim in the room, only slim beams of sunlight slipping in through the edges of the curtains.

 

            She padded barefoot over to the window, throwing open the curtains. The skyline looked different as she stared out, taking in the spectacular view. Turning back around, Kara studied the room. It was very modern, decorated in shades of black and white, and very expensive.

 

            “Hello?” she called out. Her hand went up to her throat as the voice that came out wasn’t her own. Scrambling towards the door that she assumed was the bathroom, Kara turned the handle and came face to face with a stranger looking back at her in the mirror.

 

            She gently prodded herself in the face, a soundless scream stuck in the back of her throat as her eyes widened and the face in the mirror made the same movement. Green eyes stared back at her, and Kara stopped to admire the colour of them for a second. Up close they were a dozen shades of blue, green and yellow rings, but from a distance a piercing green. Those piercing eyes were set in an extremely pale face, made up of sharp edges and lines. She was beautiful, but her face had a cold beauty to it; it wasn't a face that laughed easily. Hair so dark it was almost black hung past Kara's shoulders.

 

            Assuming that she was dreaming, Kara turned away from the mirror, walked out of the bathroom and over to the bedroom door. She walked down the hallway and out into a huge open plan kitchen and living room. It was furnished like the bedroom. The whole place had a cold, unused feel to it, as if no one really lived here. Scared to touch anything, Kara wandered through the apartment, opening doors and poking her head in.

 

            No one was home.

 

            Kara’s stomach started rumbling so she helped herself to some food. After all, this was a dream so it didn’t matter, she wasn’t technically stealing from a stranger’s house. Besides, this wasn’t even her if the face in the mirror was anything to judge by.

 

            She also had a quick shower, finding the most casual thing in the closet to put on, which was a real challenge. Seriously, did this woman not own anything other than designer dresses and heels?

 

            Standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, Kara looked around the room. Her eyes fell on a handbag, and she struggled with the urge to find the woman’s purse and check her ID. So far it was a boring dream compared to Kara’s usual ones. Even her real life was more exciting than this, and she couldn’t even fly in this dream. She knew because she’d jumped off the bed, banging her knee on the floor as she tripped over her feet upon smacking into the floor.

 

            The sound of a phone vibrating cut through the silence of the apartment and Kara’s own thoughts. She looked around eagerly, trying to locate the phone. Finding it plugged in to its charger, she looked down at the screen, picking it up and swiping across to answer it.

 

            “Hello?” Kara asked, waiting for the other person to reply.

 

            “Miss Luthor,” came the sound of a woman’s voice, “I was just calling to inform you that the shipment of blue kryptonite that you asked for has been delivered.”

 

            “Um, okay,” Kara answered, confused.

 

            “It’s waiting for you at the lab,” the woman explained.

 

            “Right, thank you,” Kara replied, puzzling over what the woman had told her as the line on the other end went dead.

 

            What lab? Who was she? What was Kara going to do with blue kryptonite?

 

            Finally giving in, Kara went over to the bag and pulled out a purse. She found a driver’s license inside, identifying her as Miss Lena Luthor.

 

            Luthor.

 

            Kara had heard that name before but she couldn’t think where. Mid-thought, Kara was disrupted by a buzzing sound coming over an intercom. She walked over to the door, looking at the panel next to it which showed a video of the man outside the building.

 

            “Hello?” Kara asked, pushing one of the buttons and hoping that it was the right one.

 

            “Your ride is here Miss Luthor,” the man told her.

 

            “Oh, okay, um … I’ll be right there,” Kara stammered, quickly stuffing the mobile phone and purse back into the bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Grabbing a coat off a hook by the door, and slipping her feet into a pair of heels neatly set on a rack, Kara walked out of the apartment, rushing to meet the driver downstairs.

 

 _Now it’s getting interesting_ , Kara thought to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

            Kara opened her eyes, taking in the familiar sight of her apartment. Groaning, she got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. She blinked at herself in the mirror, taking in her blue eyes, not green. A weird feeling came over her as a different reflection nagged at the back of her mind. Shaking the feeling away, she jumped into the shower, forgetting about it as she scrubbed herself clean. After a long shower Kara felt more awake as she went out to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee, dumping a pile of sugar in it. The smell was already started to wake her up.

 

            Feeling more awake, and more like a real person, Kara found her suit hanging up on one of the racks. She could’ve sworn she had left it crumpled up on the floor, but she brushed the thought away as she slipped it on. After a quick breakfast of fruit loops, and a bagel from the corner bakery, Kara set off to the DEO to see if there was anything she needed to handle before heading to CatCo.

 

\---

 

            Half an hour later she landed at the DEO, having stopped to help an old man cross the road. Walking in she got some weird looks and quiet whispers followed her as she looked around for Alex. Of course, she could’ve just tuned in her hearing to hear what they were gossiping about, but she too busy looking for Alex to care.

 

            “Hey you,” Winn said, falling into step with Kara as he tapped away at a tablet, “fly into any buildings this morning?” he asked, smiling widely at Kara.

 

            “What? No? Of course not,” Kara scoffed, frowning at Winn.

 

            “Hmmm,” Winn said, squinting at Kara, “well you seem to be acting more normal today.”

 

            Kara frowned even more. What was that supposed to mean? Sure, maybe she’d been a little cranky yesterday, but that was because she’d been rushed off her feet all day and felt so drained from using her powers too much. She might be an alien, but she could still burn out, and using her powers took a lot out of her. Spotting her sister, Kara walked over.

 

            “Alex!” she yelled, waving as she got closer. Her sister looked up and smiled at her, finishing up her conversation with one of the agents before walking over to Kara.

 

            “Hey, you seem like you’re in a better mood today,” Alex observed, giving Kara a once over as she checked to make sure she was okay.

 

            “Why does everyone keep saying that? I wasn’t that bad yesterday,” Kara argued, throwing her hands up in protest.

 

            “You ploughed through a building, broke Agent Valdes’ arm when you accidentally hit him, and sliced a car almost entirely in half when your laser eyes went off,” Alex explained, giving Kara a funny look.

 

            “What? I-, really? I don’t remember that,” Kara stammered, looking across the room to stare at Agent Valdes, whose arm was in a sling. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion; maybe she had been more out of it than she had suspected. She really needed to get a full night’s sleep.

 

\---

 

            The rest of the day went by without any issues.

 

            Aside from a few comments about her unusual behaviour the day before, everyone seemed normal. According to James, she had been cold and aloof, barely talking to anyone and completely unfocused on her work. Apparently at one point she had picked up a glass of water with too much force and shattered it in her hand, as if she was oblivious to her own strength. James assured her that no one saw, but she could see the concern in his eyes as he stared at her. If she wasn’t already an alien she would’ve thought that she had grown a second head.

 

            She managed to finish her article for Snapper and save the day a few times too. After rescuing a drowning man, Kara flew back to her apartment, stripping off her wet costume and having a hot shower. The hot water was soothing as she warmed herself up, her muscles relaxing under the heat. Putting on her comfiest pair of sweatpants and an old, ratty t-shirt, Kara curled up on the sofa.

 

            She was done for the day.

 

            An hour later, Alex showed up with a stack of pizzas and Maggie in tow. It didn’t take long for Kara to devour three just by herself, and Alex and Maggie shared a look with each other.

 

            “What?” Kara mumbled through a mouth full of pizza.

 

            “Nothing, it’s just yesterday you didn’t really have much of an appetite,” Alex shrugged, her forehead creasing as she eyed her sister.

 

            “You shocked us all little Danvers,” Maggie laughed, flashing Kara her dimples.

 

            “I feel like I’m missing something, I can’t remember any of this happening yesterday,” Kara frowned. Did she have amnesia? Was she blacking out? Or was she simply just so tired that she was behaving erratically? The latter seemed like the most logical one, and Kara promised herself a lie-in in the morning. She deserved it.

 

            “The last thing I can remember was my dream last night. I was this genius billionaire but I wasn’t me, like I had a different face, it was super weird,” Kara told them, taking another bite out of her pizza. “I didn’t even have my powers.”

 

            “A genius billionaire, huh?” Maggie asked, “well isn’t that the dream.”

 

\---

 

            Alex and Maggie didn’t stay late; they left not long after they had finished eating the pizza. They were both tired, and could see that Kara was also tired. Perhaps even more tired than they were from running around as a superhero all day, on top of doing her actual job.

 

            She went to bed early that night, hoping that she would have a peaceful sleep, hopefully without any midnight rescue missions. Kara was also hoping that she wouldn’t have any dreams, last nights had been especially vivid and Kara had been confused all day, as if she hadn’t fully woken up from it.

 

            Perhaps tonight she would finally get the deep sleep she needed, and get back to her usual self which had apparently gone missing if everyone’s stories were to be believed.

 

* * *

 

 

            Lena shot up at the sound of her alarm, wincing as her body protested. She was aching everywhere, what had she been doing in her sleep? She shook away the dream she’d been having. Something about her flying, albeit badly, and fighting crime, just like Superman. She must have been tired because she rarely remembered her dreams unless she was exhausted or stressed. Maybe all of her late nights were finally catching up to her.

 

            Lena went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, before heading to the bathroom. She put her clothes into the laundry basket and jumped in the shower, picking up a bottle of shower gel. As she poured some onto a loofa and started to scrub her body, she noticed two large matching bruises on her knees. Inspecting the rest of her body, she found a dozen more bruises.

 

            Shutting the water off and wrapping herself in a towel, Lena headed back into her bedroom. Sighing, she pulled a dress out of her closet and grabbed a pair of stockings too; she couldn’t go to the office with bruised knees, what would people think?

 

            After a quick cup of coffee and a healthy breakfast of granola and yoghurt, Lena donned her coat and went downstairs to meet her driver.

 

\---

 

            She arrived at LexCorp just before eight o’clock, heading straight for the labs. Hopefully the blue kryptonite would be here today and she could start making some changes to the machine.

 

            “Miss Luthor,” her assistant greeted her as Lena walked into the lab. She handed Lena a coffee and a tablet with her schedule for the day outlined on it.

 

            “Any news on the blue kryptonite?” Lena asked, scrolling through her schedule and grimacing at the two meetings she had to attend. She hated meetings more than anything, and if it wasn’t for her family’s image she would probably never attend another one again.

 

            “I-, um, it came in yesterday Miss Luthor, I had it brought directly here for you,” Jess explained, frowning at Lena in confusion.

 

            “Well? Where is it then?” Lena asked impatiently, taking a sip of her coffee, “and is there any way you can get me out of this board meeting at eleven? I’m not sure I’ll be finished here by then.”

 

            “You accepted your brother’s invitation yesterday to attend the meeting, I’m sorry but I don’t think I’ll be able to fabricate a good enough excuse in time,” Jess reminded her, “the kryptonite should be in the vault, I’ll have send someone to fetch it for you right away Miss Luthor.”

 

            Lena frowned as she walked over to the twisted metal pieces of her machine. She couldn’t remember Jess telling her about the blue kryptonite, and she’d been waiting for that shipment for days. She was sure she would have paid attention to that. She definitely didn’t remember accepting an invitation from Lex to attend one of his meetings, never in a million years would she agree to that. Not after the last fight they’d had, he just wasn’t the same brother anymore.

 

            Picking up a wrench off the wall of tools, Lena set about loosening the bolts on the twisted metal. By the time a lab tech wheeled in a locked box, Lena was welding a fresh sheet of metal in place. She turned off the blowtorch and lifted the mask as she eyed the box.

 

            Taking off the thick gloves, she walked over, stopping in front of it. A red light shone on the keypad, waiting for the correct code to unlock it.

 

            “Would you like me to enter the code for you?” Jess asked, appearing at Lena’s side.

 

            “I think I know my own combination,” Lena scoffed, entering the same code she used for all of her personal items she kept locked up.

 

            “But yesterday yo-, never mind,” Jess mumbled, shooting Lena a confused look as she backed away to the corner, blending in with the furniture as she arranged Lena’s schedule for tomorrow.

 

            Raising the lid of the box, Lena let out a little gasp, taking in the deep blue glow of the kryptonite nestled within. Closing the lid, Lena relocked it, getting back to work on the rest of her machine.

 

            She hammered and drilled until the machine started to look like it was supposed to. Working hard in the quiet room, time flew by, until Jess interrupted her ten minutes before she was due to be upstairs for the meeting.

 

            Sighing, Lena ordered Jess to stay with the kryptonite and made her way to the elevators. She couldn’t remember the last time she had made the trip all the way to the top floor, but it was familiar from the days when her and Lex were still close. These days she rarely ventured out of the sub-level labs in the basement of the building.

 

            The doors slid open and there was her brother.

 

            Lex.

 

            He’d grown his hair down to his chin, and he was wearing a blazer over one of his ridiculous graphic t-shirts, ever the carefree genius son. Lena tried so hard to be the perfect, polished daughter, but she could never compete with Lex for their mother’s attention. That used to upset her, but she'd built her walls and she'd built them high. Now she accepted the fact that she'd always come second best, and she was content to do her own thing and bring in a fat pay check for doing it.

 

            His eyes slid over to the elevator as the doors opened, and a wide smiled split his face as he looked at Lena.

 

            “Ah my dear sister,” he called out, spreading his arms wide as he walked over to her and wrapped Lena in a hug. She stiffened at the contact, her jaw tightening as she extracted herself from it.

 

            “It’s been too long,” Lex smiled.

 

            Lena’s face was a mask of stone as she stared coldly at her brother. “You know perfectly well why it’s been so long,” Lena replied icily, crossing her arms across her chest. She tried not to look too much like a sulking child.

 

            He touched his fingers to her back, guiding her towards the conference room as she talked. “Well, that’s why I’m so glad you took up my offer,” he grinned, ever the charmer, “you know, I half expected you to decline again, but I’m glad you’ve seen some sense.”

 

            “Please,” Lena scoffed, “if I had it my way I wouldn’t be here.”

 

            “But you are here,” he clapped his hands together, giving Lena a maddening grin, “so let’s focus on that for today.”

 

            She glared at his back as she joined the group of business people.

 

\---

 

            The meeting wasn’t too long, but it still put Lena in a foul mood. Lex was still trying to push his crazy ideas, a maddening glint in his eyes as he talked animatedly about his future plans for LexCorp. She was tempted to walk out; this was the exact reason why she hadn’t spoken to him or her mom in months. Lex was as charming as ever, and he ensnared all of the other business people, and they watched him with rapt attention, completely enthralled by his plans.

 

            As soon as the meeting was over, she slipped out before Lex could ensnare her in more conversation. Before the doors slid shut she caught a glimpse of him through the windows of the conference room. He was smiling at her as he watched the doors of the elevator slide shut.

 

            Safely down in her lab, Lena got back to work.

 

\---

 

            That night, she stayed up late, drinking copious amounts of black coffee to keep herself awake. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Seeing Lex had taken a lot out of her, and she was aching from the mysterious bruises she had sustained overnight.

 

            When she finally slipped into bed, Lena fell into an uneasy sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

            Lena woke up early to the sun streaming in through the windows. Groaning she sat up, looking around at the apartment. She was dreaming again, the same dream as last time, right down to the tiniest details in the apartment.

 

            Rolling out of bed, she stumbled to the bathroom. Staring back at her was the same face as last time. Sighing, Lena pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the hot water, yelping as she accidentally wrenched the handle of the tap off. She had forgotten how strong this dream version of her was. Cursing, she tried to fit the handle back on, before stepping under the stream of hot water.

 

            She got dressed in another one of the shirts and pants, this time throwing a jumper over the top. Picking up her phone, Lena saw a text off Alex.

 

_‘I’m just leaving the DEO, I’ll meet you there in a few’_

 

            Lena frowned at the phone, having no clue what Alex was talking about.

 

_‘Meet me where?’_ Lena messaged back, waiting a few moments before receiving a reply.

 

_‘The café, I thought you said you wanted to get breakfast?’_

 

_‘Right! Which café did you want to meet at?’_

 

            She got a text back off Alex with the name of the café, along with a comment about where else Lena would expect them to meet. Apparently it was a regular meeting place that dream her must have frequented. Pulling up the directions, Lena left the apartment and flagged down a cab outside.

 

\---

 

            Walking into the café, Lena spotted Alex and another woman sat around a table. She headed towards them and they both looked up, Alex’s mouth falling open in a look of horror as she stared at Lena, scrambling out of her seat. Quickly looking down, Lena checked to make sure she had definitely put pants on this morning. She’d never had the naked dream before but there was a first time for everything.

 

            “What are you doing!” Alex cried, pulling Lena into a chair whilst she looked around the room, eyeing all the customers.

 

            “Wha-, you said we were getting breakfast,” Lena told her, frowning in confusion. She’d literally been messaging her half an hour ago, what was her problem?

 

            “Where are your glasses? Are you trying to expose yourself as Supergirl,” Alex hissed, frantically searching through her bag for a pair of sunglasses and jamming them on Lena’s face. Lena frowned, what kind of name was Supergirl? Could her subconscious not come up with a more original name than a rip-off version of Superman?

 

            “Honestly Kara, your head’s been all over the place lately,” Alex scolded her.

 

            Lena started at the name; she’d forgotten she wasn’t Lena in her dreams. She had also realised that yes, she _had_ forgotten to put on the glasses that she’d seen next to her bed this morning. Adjusting the dark sunglasses on her face, she stared down at the menu. How was she supposed to act? This was her dream; she could do whatever she wanted.

 

            “Little Danvers!”

 

            Lena jerked her head up at the shout. She blinked in surprise as she looked at the woman opposite her, her forehead wrinkling as she stared. “Sorry, what were you saying?” Lena asked.

 

            “Is it too early for your brain to start working?” the woman joked, flashing her dimples at Lena.

 

            “I was just, um, looking at the menu,” Lena said, giving her an apologetic shrug as she fiddled with the red braided bracelet on her wrist.

 

            “Looking at the menu? Thinking of mixing things up huh?” the woman asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise. Lena laughed nervously as she looked down at the menu, wondering what she was supposed to order.

 

            “So anyway, are you in for tonight?” she asked Lena, elaborating when she stared back blankly. “The bar?”

 

            “Oh, I don’t know, I might just stay in,” Lena replied, trying to think of an excuse.

 

            “Mon-El is coming, and I know he’s sweet on you,” Alex remarked, wrinkling her nose slightly. So dream her had a man; now that was definitely unrealistic.

 

            “Oh yeah! I was thinking that we could have a sister’s night this Friday,” Alex said, and Lena blinked in surprise. They were sisters? This dream was getting weirder as it progressed. Lena guessed that it was her subconscious’ desire to have a sibling who loved her.

 

            “Maggie, are you in?” Alex asked the woman, and Lena realised that that was her name. “I’ll invite James and Winn too, and you can invite Mon-El, Kara.”

 

            “Oh um, sure, that sounds fun,” Lena agreed, trying to sound enthusiastic.

 

            “Hey, is everything okay?” Alex asked, putting a hand on Lena’s arm. She pulled it back quickly, not used to being touched so casually. Alex frowned, her arm falling uselessly to the table.

 

            “I’m fine, I’m just going to order,” Lena mumbled, standing up and pushing the sunglasses further up her nose as she walked over to the counter.

 

            She sat back down and a few minutes later a waiter brought her coffee over.

 

            “Is that _black_ coffee?” Alex asked, disbelief colouring her voice. “You _hate_ black coffee.”

 

            “I like it,” Lena said defensively, taking a sip of the coffee and relishing the bitter taste of it.

 

\---

 

            “Hey Kara, wait up!”

 

            Lena span around at the shout, taking in the appearance of the guy jogging towards her.

 

            “Hey!” he smiled as he got closer.

 

            “Oh, hi,” Lena murmured as she carried on walking to her desk.

 

            “Snapper’s got you working hard, huh?” the guy asked, trailing behind her.

 

            “Mhm,” Lena replied, sitting down and moving the mouse to light up her screen.

 

            “So, I heard we’re going out Friday night, that’ll be fun right?” he smiled at her again. Lena looked up at him, taking in his appearance. So this was either James or Mon-El. She was more inclined to think he was James because he didn’t look like an alien, but then again Superman looked human too.

 

            “Should be,” Lena replied coldly. She didn’t mean to; she was just irritated by the constant questioning from everyone. Clearly everyone in her dream didn’t know her that well, because she was definitely not much of a talker _or_ people person.

 

            “Right,” the guy said, awkwardly waiting for Lena to say something else. When she didn’t he clapped his hands together, giving her a big smile. “Well I’ll leave you alone then, and oh yeah! James is looking for you.”

 

            Lena looked up, watching him leave. So this was Mon-El. She guessed he was cute in a generic frat boy way, but she would never be attracted to him in a million years. The fact that she apparently had a “thing” with a guy was bad enough as it was, but this Kara alter-ego could’ve at least picked someone more suited to her. Dream her had terrible taste in guys.

 

* * *

 

            Kara woke up late after snoozing the alarm a few times. Rolling over, she picked up her phone which was buzzing incessantly on the bedside table.

 

            “Hello?” she grumbled as she answered.

 

_“Miss Luthor, your meeting starts in twenty minutes,”_ Jess’ voice came through.

 

            Kara sat up in bed, realising that she wasn’t in her apartment. She was dreaming again. Sighing, she slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom. Sure enough, there was the stranger’s face looking back at her.

 

_“Miss Luthor are you there?”_

 

            “Yes!” Kara exclaimed, turning away from the mirror, “yes, I’m um, running late. Can you cancel my meeting please?”

 

_“Of course, right away Miss Luthor,”_ Jess replied _, “would you like me to cancel your one o’clock too?”_

 

            “Yes please,” Kara sighed in relief, grateful that she could avoid it. Last time she’d had this dream the meeting had been awful. She had no idea what anyone was talking about and had tried to keep a low profile at the back of the room.

 

            “Thank you Jess,” Kara said before hanging up.

 

            She had a long shower and dressed in the most casual thing she could find in the closet. She really needed to buy some sweatpants; these silk pyjamas and pants suits might have cost a small fortune, but they definitely weren’t Kara’s style.

 

            Kara made herself an omelette for breakfast, frowning as she only ate a small portion of what she had made. Apparently dream her didn’t need to eat much. Then again, she couldn’t fly or shoot lasers from her eyes, as Kara had found out the hard way. She still had faint bruises on her knees from hitting the floor so hard.

 

\---

 

            The car pulled up outside LexCorp early in the afternoon, and Kara slid out of the car, thanking the driver who held the door open for her. She went straight down to the labs and opened up her laptop, opening up the new emails in her inbox. None of them made sense to her, so she ignored them and decided to check some news sites. Maybe one of her articles had been posted.

 

            “Miss Luthor, I had your dress pressed and delivered to your house. Your driver is set to pick you up at eight,” Jess informed her, appearing behind Kara’s shoulder.

 

            “Um, what’s this for?” Kara asked hesitantly, spinning her stool around to look up at Jess.

 

            “The gallery opening, Miss Luthor,” Jess reminded her.

 

            “Oh … right, of course,” Kara mumbled, acting as if she had a clue what this gallery was about. However, Kara did like art so she was excited to go anyway, and she’d never been to an opening before.

 

            “Would you like me to bring fetch the blueprints for the aether propulsion machine?” Jess asked, waiting for Kara’s permission.

 

            “Oh, um, sure,” Kara agreed, wondering what on earth she would do with them. Clearly they were important to her though, because she’d heard a lot about it from Jess both times she’d had this dream. Maybe she’d understand what her subconscious was trying to tell her if she had a look at them.

 

            Kara sipped at the black coffee Jess had brought her whilst she waited for her to come back, wrinkling her nose at the bitter taste. She didn’t have to wait long before Jess brought in a roll of blue paper covered in diagrams.

 

            Kara spread them out on the table, trying to make sense of what she was looking at. It looked complicated, the pages full of diagrams and measurements. Frowning, Kara ran her fingers over the pages, taking in as much as she could. This was what the kryptonite had been for.

 

            She sat there for hours, pretending that she was working on a solution to the apparent malfunction she had caused. The machine looked brand new in the corner though so apparently her dream had fixed it for her. When it was an acceptable time to leave the office, Kara met her driver outside and went home to get ready for the gallery opening.

 

\---

 

            Kara was waved through the doors after presenting her invitation. After a quick google, Kara had found out that Lena Luthor was a benefactor for the art gallery and had contributed a few pieced to the exhibit. Even her dream self liked art it seemed.

 

            Accepting a flute of champagne, Kara walked to the nearest painting. She was no expert but she loved art anyway, and she appreciated all of the pieces she saw in the gallery. Some of the other patrons approached her and Kara tried her best to mingle and make conversation with them, even if she had no idea who they were. Although, by their tone and easy manner she gathered she should have known them. Everyone seemed thrilled to be talking to her though, albeit a little bit surprised that she was so friendly and open.

 

            It was a long night, and Kara had a few too many glasses of champagne, but she enjoyed herself immensely. By the time she made it back to her apartment, she was slightly dizzy on her feet and stumbled through the door. This was a new experience too; she couldn’t get drunk in real life. It was strange that her dream alter-ego had given her so many human qualities, but Kara attributed it to her desire to be normal. Not that she would ever wish to give up her powers, not when she did so much good with them.

 

            Pushing her drunken thoughts aside, she stripped off her dress and collapsed on top of the covers in her underwear. Everything felt so real and Kara frowned at her hands as she held them in front of her face. Grabbing the closest pen she could find, she wrote her name on the palm of her left hand. A few moments later she dropped the pen as she blacked out, falling into a deep sleep thanks to the alcohol she’d been consuming all night.


	4. Chapter 4

            Lena woke up the next morning with a banging headache. She winced as she sat up, the room spinning around her. Groaning in confusion, she noticed that she was wearing nothing but her underwear, and she had slept on top of the covers. What had happened last night? Staggering out of bed, Lena caught herself on the wall, stopping herself just shy of keeling over onto the floor. She felt hungover.

 

            Grabbing her robe from the back of the bathroom door, Lena padded barefoot to the kitchen, unearthing some pain killers from the first aid kit and downing them with a glass of water. Rubbing her face, Lena let out another groan before reaching out to put the glass in the sink. Something on her hand caught her attention. On the palm of her hand there was just one word written in black ink.

 

            _Kara._

 

            Frowning in confusion, Lena rubbed at the ink. Had she been trying to pick up a girl last night? And then it clicked. Kara; the girl from her dreams. Something inside Lena felt whole as the name came to her mind. Every morning for the past few days she had been feeling like something was missing; especially the days when she had had the superhero dream.

 

            Now it was like the missing piece of a puzzle she didn’t know she was solving had clicked into place. But what did it mean? That wasn’t her handwriting, and she had no memory of going out last night, so who wrote it?

 

            Lena stumbled back to her bedroom, collapsing on the bed as she reached for her phone. Perhaps her phone would give her some idea about what had happened last night. Before that, she messaged Jess and told her she wasn’t coming in today, deciding to stay in bed and try and sort things out.

 

            The first place she checked was her contacts, and there was no recent addition of a Kara in there. Next, she checked her photos. Lena had never been one to take pictures of herself or trivial things, but the camera roll was full of photos of artwork that she vaguely remembered donating to a gallery a few months ago. Yet the photos were from last night.

 

            Frowning, Lena scrolled through some more. Clearly she had been at an art gallery last night, but she had no recollection of it at all. The last thing she remembered was her business meeting with Lex the day before last. What had she been drinking last night to make her black out? Had she been drugged?

 

            Pulling up the calendar app, she hoped that maybe she had written in the event she had attended last night. She stared blankly at the date as the app opened. It was the thirty-first. Lena frowned, that wasn’t right. Her phone must have been glitching, the month was only halfway through.

 

            And then she realised that she had realised that the entry for the thirtieth had a gallery opening scheduled. She dropped her phone on her face in shock. Cursing softly and rubbing her nose, Lena checked her phone again. Surely she was mistaken. There was no way she had blacked out for half a month. She could only recall a few days over the past few weeks. Frowning, Lena tried to think about when she had started being so confused.

 

            This had all started with the blast.

 

            That’s when the dreams had started. That was the last time she hadn’t felt empty inside, like she was missing a part of herself when she was awake. It was also the last time she could remember having coherent thoughts. Now she was confused all the time, as if she was living two lives.

 

            It didn’t make sense.

 

            Lurching out of bed, Lena went to her office. Finding a piece of paper and clutching the pen she’d found on her bed, she scrawled something down, taking it back to the kitchen and leaving it on the counter. The cleaning lady wasn’t due for another few days, so Lena hoped that by then she would have heard a reply, or of she didn’t, could figure out what was happening to her.

 

\---

 

            After a warm shower, Lena felt a bit less hungover and more like herself. Or at least the walls had stopped spinning. Brewing a pot of coffee and cooking some eggs, she sat down at the table and powered up her laptop.

 

            She ate her breakfast quickly as she waited for the login screen to show up. After bringing up google, she sat there with her fingers hovering above the keyboard. What could she search? She felt silly even thinking about googling the dream version of herself, because there was no way she was actually switching bodies with a real person. But she didn’t even know what to google to double check.

 

            What did she know about dream her? She could fly, she could shoot lasers out of her eyes and was really strong. Definitely an alien like Superman. Remembering the name Alex had called her, she considered trying that first. Hesitating slightly, Lena sighed and let her fingers dance over the keys.

 

            There were no search results for Supergirl; or any that were relevant to a flying alien. The only ones that were relevant were corrections to Superman. Next, Lena typed in ‘Kara’ and tried to think of something else to narrow down the results. She couldn’t remember what her last name was supposed to be, it slipped her mind. Instead, she typed in CatCo, knowing that she was a reporter.

 

            No results came up for a Kara working at CatCo magazine. Frowning, Lena slammed the lid of her laptop down, picking up her coffee and taking a sip. She was being ridiculous. What did she expect? She would find the person she had been dreaming about and then tell her she sometimes had a dream where she was taking over her body? That would end well.

 

            Setting the thought aside, she took her plate and dumped it in the sink. Today she would work on all of her paperwork. Surely if she had missed half of the month then there would be a backlog of paperwork that needed attending to. That would keep her mind occupied for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

 

            Kara woke up early the next morning to the sound of her phone ringing. Grumbling, she rolled out of bed and pulled on her suit before taking off through the window. It was only an armed robbery and she took them down within minutes of landing on site. Her job done, Kara flew back to her apartment.

 

            She was wide awake now, and knew there would be no more sleeping for her this morning. Showering, she put on some sweatpants and a warm jumper, thinking about the tight dress she had been wearing in her dream last night. Which reminded her to set a date to visit National City’s Museum of Modern Art. She loved art and had been meaning to check it out but had never had the time. Maybe that’s what her subconscious had been trying to tell her in the dream.

 

            Craving pancakes, Kara walked into the kitchen and stopped as she took in the clean appearance of her apartment. She wasn’t a messy person, but she was pretty sure she’d left the blanket balled up on the sofa and yesterday’s dishes in the sink. It was tidier than she could remember it being in a long time, almost too tidy.

 

            Something nagged at the back of her mind as she pulled out some eggs and went searching for the flour. Which was easy to find in her organised cupboards. Okay, she _definitely_ hadn’t sorted them out. What was going on here? Had Alex snuck in and reorganised Kara’s entire apartment? Or did she have a secret cleaning burglar that came in and cleaned her apartment whilst she was asleep?

 

            Kara hung around her apartment whilst she waited to leave for work. She thought about doing some laundry but found the basket empty when she went to sort it out. And then she found the clothes hung up on the racks which had been arranged by item of clothing and then colour. An uneasy feeling spread through the Kara as she looked around her apartment. Who had been in here?

 

            She left for work with a frown on her face, double-checking that she had locked all the windows and doors in her apartment. Perhaps it was a once off thing, but if someone had been in her apartment, Kara wasn’t going to make it easier on them. After a quick inventory of the place, she had determined that they hadn’t taken anything, just tidied up after her. Kara didn’t know what was more unnerving. At least stealing her TV would have been more normal.

 

            As soon as she walked through the elevator doors she was bombarded by Mon-El.

 

            “Excited for tonight!” he asked excitedly, beaming at Kara as he trailed after her.

 

            “Tonight?” Kara asked, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she gave him a confused look.

 

            “Game night … at your sister’s place … you said you were coming?” Mon-El explained slowly.

 

            “Oh, right, game night. Yeah, I’m super excited,” Kara smiled at him, making her way to her desk.

 

            “Is everything okay? You’ve been really out of it lately,” Mon-El asked, perching on the edge of Kara’s desk as he looked at her suspiciously.

 

            “Everything’s fine, why wouldn’t it be?” Kara replied, trying to summon her usual enthusiasm. Inside she was really confused though, she couldn’t remember Alex asking her about a game night, let alone agreeing to go.

 

            “Right, well I’ll see you tonight then,” Mon-El smiled before getting back to work.

 

            Kara frowned, turning on her computer as she pulled out the notes she had taken from her last interview. She opened the word document on her computer and read over her notes as she tried to pick up where she had left off.

 

            “Hey, Kara,” James said, appearing behind her shoulder. Jumping slightly, she spun around in her chair, smiling up at him.

 

            “James! Hi,” she said enthusiastically. She didn’t get to see him as much now that he was CEO, and she missed spending time with him at work. “Are you coming to game night tonight?”

 

            “I wouldn’t miss it,” James smiled, crossing his arms as he leant against the edge of her desk. “New article?” he asked, twisting slightly so he could see her screen.

 

            “Still working on the alien assimilation one,” Kara explained, flipping through her notes as she looked for a specific quote she had planned to add in.

 

            “You mean the one that was published the other day?” James asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

 

            “Wha-, no? I didn’t finish it?” Kara frowned. Quickly, she scrolled down the word document, leaning forward as she concentrated on the screen.

 

            “No, no, no,” she muttered to herself as she reached the end of the completed article. She looked up at James with a panicked look on her face.

 

            “I didn’t write this,” she exclaimed, pushing her chair away from her desk as she brushed her hair out of her face.

 

            “Hey, is everything okay?” James asked, laying a gentle hand on Kara’s shoulder as he looked at her with concern.

 

            “I-I have to go,” Kara mumbled, shoving her notes back into her bag and standing up. James called after her but his shouts fell on deaf ears as Kara hurried over to the elevators and went up to the roof. She need to talk to Alex. The DEO would know what was happening to her. Maybe she’d been exposed to some alien virus that was affecting her memory.

 

            Stripping off her clothes, Kara exposed the S on her chest. After stashing them and her glasses behind a vent, she shot off in search of her sister.

 

\---

 

            “Alex!” Kara’s shout rang out across the office and her sister looked up in surprise, which quickly turned into a look of worry. She cut off her conversation and hurried over to Kara who was striding towards her.

 

            “K-Supergirl, what’s wrong,” Alex asked, frowning as she got closer to her sister, reaching out to touch her.

 

            “There’s something wrong with me,” Kara rushed out, “I don’t know what’s happening. Someone was in my apartment and I can’t remember things. I-I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She paced back and forth, her panic rising as she babbled.

 

            “Just-, hang on a second, slow down,” Alex said, putting her hands on Kara’s shoulders and stopping her mid-step.

 

            “Take a deep breath, and go again, slower this time,” Alex ordered her, looking at Kara with a worried look on her face. Kara rarely panicked. It had to be really bad for her to admit that there was something wrong with her.

 

            “I-I can’t remember things. My apartment has been tidied up and I don’t remember doing it. You invited me to game night and I have no recollection of it. You said I smashed through a building and sawed a car in half with my laser eyes,” Kara explained, her voice getting higher in pitch the more she panicked.

 

            “I think I’m losing my mind,” she confessed, running her fingers through her hair as she let out a deep breath.

 

            “Shh, you’re fine. You’ve just been stressed lately, maybe you just need more sleep,” Alex said, trying to calm her down.

 

            “But-” Kara argued, knowing that sleep wasn’t the problem.

 

            “Wait-,” Alex cut her off, holding up one finger, “but we can run some tests just to make sure. If it puts your mind at ease, then it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

 

            “Thank you,” Kara said, her shoulders dropping as she let out a sigh of relief.

 

  “Come on, let’s get you sorted out,” Alex said, taking Kara by the arm and leading her to one of the labs. They roped Winn in along the way, and the three of them set themselves up in one of the rooms.

 

            Kara sat on the bed, anxiously waiting whilst Alex and Winn discussed the type of tests to run and the machines they would need. Alex stuck a number of electrodes to Kara’s head and chest, whilst Winn fiddles with the tech.

 

            Eventually they were all set up. They ran through a series of tests, measuring brain activity and Kara’s bodily functions. Everything came back normal. Kara let Alex pull all the electrodes off her as she sat there in silence. There had to be something wrong. It was like a part of her was missing. There had been a hole inside her for the past few weeks; inside her mind and her body.

 

            “So that’s it?” Kara asked, frowning, “I’m fine. That’s it?”

 

            “I’m sorry Kara, but there’s no signs of anything wrong with you. Your brain waves are fine, the MRI came back perfect, there’s nothing I can do,” Alex apologised, wrapping her sister in a hug. Kara sat there in silence, keeping her thoughts to herself. Deep down she knew there was something wrong, but she had no proof.

 

\---

 

            At game night, Kara was mostly silent. Besides a remark off Maggie about how Kara remembered her glasses this time, no one commented on her erratic behaviour lately.

 

            She tried her hardest to enjoy herself, and act like everything was fine. Especially with Alex constantly watching her to make sure she was okay. Kara spent a lot of time and effort trying to keep a conversation with Mon-El going to avoid suspicion. At least if she couldn’t get rid of the strange feelings she was having, she could distract herself with pointless conversation.

 

            That night, she was grateful to be alone. She was tired from keeping up a careless, cheerful front all night. If only her friends weren’t so observant. When she got back to her apartment though, Kara was hesitant to go inside.

 

            Taking off her glasses, she used her x-ray vision to see if anyone was inside. The coast was clear, so she turned her key in the lock and stepped inside, flipping the light switches as she walked in. Looking around the room, she came to the conclusion that nothing had been moved whilst she was gone.

 

            Still a bit on edge, Kara changed into her sweatpants, warily looking around her apartment as she did. It took hours for sleep to find her, and she couldn’t stop tossing and turning all night. Luckily she didn’t dream that night, instead she stayed in a restless sleep, frowning and murmuring the same word over and over again.

 

            Lena.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay; busy week.

            Over the next few mornings, Lena would get up and rush to check the note she had left on the counter, only to find no reply scrawled beneath her message. She felt sillier by the day, which put her in a bad mood at work. What would people say if they knew the other Luthor was losing their mind too, albeit in a different way.

 

            But on the fourth morning, Lena stared down at the paper, her face white with shock, even as she was flooded with a sense of relief. Beneath Lena’s elegant calligraphy was a reply, written in big, curly letters so different from Lena’s own.

 

_I’ve been having a recurring dream about a girl named Kara, and there are gaps in my memory and skipped days that I can’t remember. This might sound crazy, but if you’re Kara, and you’re reading this, please tell me that I’m not losing my mind. Please tell me that this is happening to you too and you have some sort of explanation. Thanks, Lena._

**Oh thank God! I thought it was just me! Yes, it’s happening to me too, but I don’t know what it is that’s happening. So either we’re both losing out minds or we’re switching bodies? That’s the only thing I can come up with anyway. Text me and we can figure out what’s happening. Kara :)**

****

            Beneath that was a phone number.

 

            Lena left the piece of paper on the kitchen counter and went to take a shower and clear her mind. She was going to need some food and coffee before she built up the courage to message a stranger that she was dreaming about and potentially switching bodies with.

 

            Wrapped in fluffy bathrobe, Lena sipped her coffee and waited for her toast to pop up. The piece of paper was clutched in her other hand as she read the reply over and over again. By now she had the number memorised and was trying to work up the courage to text it.

 

            She ate her toast slowly, frowning down at her phone where she’d entered a new contact. Kara. Draining the rest of her cup, Lena sighed and picked up the phone. Quickly, she typed out a text, and after reading it over, quickly pressed send before she changed her mind.

 

**[Lena 7:14 am]:** Hi, this is Lena. I got your number off a note. Please let me know if this is the right number.

 

            She put her phone down and went to get dressed, trying not to dwell on it too much. By eight o’clock she was ready for work, and still didn’t have a reply off of Kara. Sliding into the back of her car, she sighed, staring at the blank lock screen of her phone.

 

\---

 

            Lena was talking into her voice recorder, describing the pre-ignition parameters for the latest test-run of her machine. Mid-sentence, she trailed off as her phone vibrated on one of the work benches. Pressing the stop button, Lena lunged for her phone.

 

**[Kara 11:26 am]:** Hi!!!

 

**[Kara 11:26 am]:** I can’t believe it worked!!

 

**[Kara 11:27 am]:** We’re actually switching bodies!!!!

 

**[Kara 11:28 am]:** Okay so I realise how crazy that sounds but !!!!!!!!!

 

            Lena’s eyes widened by the amount of exclamation marks and the level of enthusiasm contained in the four tweets. Not to mention the dozen emojis. Was this girl serious? She quickly typed back a reply.

 

**[Lena 11:31 am]:** Glad to know that it’s not just me.

 

**[Kara 11:33 am]:** I thought it was just me!! No one believed me!!!!

 

**[Lena 11:34 am]:** Maybe we should just keep this to ourselves.

 

**[Lena 11:34 am]:** As long as we know the truth I think it’s best if we try and act like everything is normal.

 

**[Kara 11:36 am]:** Yeah sure! I think we should lay some ground rules then

 

**[Kara 11:36 am]:** Like so we can try and act normal, bc I’ve been getting some weird comments about my behaviour when I guess you’ve taken over idk

 

**[Lena 11:37 am]:** Sounds like a good idea.

 

**[Lena 11:37 am]:** But I think a more important question is what are you?

 

            She waited for a reply, but didn’t get one. Dropping her phone onto the work table, Lena groaned in frustration. What was the point in keeping secrets when they were living each other’s lives? She clearly knew that Kara wasn’t human, she’d gathered that herself, and surely Kara knew that Lena knew. All texting back would do was help Lena understand Kara better.

 

            Packing away her notes and voice recorder, Lena walked out of the lab. Usually she would get Jess bring lunch down for her, but she needed to go for a walk and clear her head. Finding out that she wasn’t losing her mind, and having her suspicions confirmed, was a lot to process and if Lena was being honest with herself, she didn’t exactly know or want to process it.

 

            At the back of the café, Lena typed away at her laptop. She was googling body swapping, hoping that not all of the search results would be fruitless. Now that she knew what was happening, she wanted to gather some insight, hoping it was ease her mind. Picking at her salad, Lena scanned the page in front of her. It was useless, just like the others. There was no legitimate information that had explained what she was going through.

 

\---

 

            Kara didn’t reply all afternoon; not even when Lena messaged her and told her she knew Kara was an alien, or could fly at least. The alien part was just speculation on Lena’s part, but Kara did bear a lot of resemblance to Superman, so she wagered that she wasn’t far off.

 

            Lena resigned herself to a long night of paperwork. Brewing a fresh pot of coffee, she retired to her office in a pair of pyjamas and a stack of paperwork and files that she was dreading going through. More than anything she wanted to crack the code to her machine, or if she couldn’t do that, wanted to crack the code of her miraculous body swapping.

 

* * *

 

            Kara woke up late. She’d had a long night rescuing the city and hadn’t fallen into bed until dawn was approaching. When she woke up she had a relaxing shower and dug into a bowl of cereal as she made her way through all the messages and notifications on her phone.

 

            Lucy had posted a new picture on Instagram of her and some of her military friends. Alex wanted to know if Kara was coming into the DEO today. James wanted to know if Kara was coming into work because Snapper was even more irritable today. Clicking on the message from a number she didn’t know, Kara choked on her cereal.

 

            It was from Lena.

 

            Coughing, Kara stared at the text in disbelief. She’d written a reply to a message she’d found in the kitchen when she was this Lena person, and had been slightly sceptical of it. Surely she wasn’t actually swapping bodies with someone? But she couldn’t deny the facts. There was a text right in front of her confirming her suspicions. There was no other possible way that Lena would have been able to get her number. Kara recalled how shocked she had been to see Lena's note on the kitchen counter, but she was relieved to know what was wrong with her. No wonder the tests had all come back clean.

 

            Kara messaged Lena back, getting a quick reply back. A part of her was relieved at the fact that she wasn’t going through this alone. That she wasn’t the only person who had thought they were losing their mind. Although it was hard for Kara to wrap her mind around the concept of them switching bodies, it didn’t seem impossible to her. She was from a different planet, with superpowers. Anything seemed possible when she took that into consideration.

 

            When Lena brought up her Kryptonian heritage it gave Kara a panicked feeling in her stomach. Supergirl was her biggest secret, and even if she was swapping bodies with Lena, she still had to be careful. Kara stopped replying after that, deciding to take some time to think it over. Too many people knew already.

 

\---

 

            Landing at the DEO, Kara walked into the office, her cape billowing out behind her. She spotted Alex and Winn across the room, staring intently at a computer screen and discussing what they saw. They both looked up as Kara walked over.

 

            “Hey! Hey you!” Alex said, looking at Kara with an uncertain look on her face.

 

            “Hi,” Kara smiled at her, “got anything for me?”

 

            “Maybe,” Winn told her, pointing at his screen, “we’re picking up some radiation signals at an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city but we’re not sure what it is yet.”

 

            “Want me to check it out anyway?” Kara asked Alex, raising her eyebrows in question.

 

            “No, it’s fine, we’ll let you know if it turns into something bigger,” Alex waved her hand dismissively. She looked at Kara with a serious expression. “Can-, um, can we talk for a second?” she asked hesitantly.

 

            “Sure, what’s up?” Kara asked, letting Alex lead her over to a quiet corner.

 

            “Are you okay?” Alex whispered, looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “You know, with the whole thing the other day, I’m just not sure you should be coming here as often.”

 

            “Oh that,” Kara laughed nervously, waving away Alex’s concerns. “I’m fine, I’ve been getting a lot more sleep lately, I was just stressed with working two jobs, you know?”

 

            Alex nodded slowly, staring intently at her sister. “Just … take it slow okay?”

 

            Kara laughed, giving Alex’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “You worry too much.”

 

            Alex opened her mouth, about to argue with Kara, but Kara cut her off, holding her hands up defensively. “But yes, I’ll take it easy if it pleases you.”

 

            “Good. You scared me the other day, you weren’t yourself,” Alex frowned, thinking about Kara’s frantic rambling. Even though the scans and tests hadn’t turned anything up, Alex had still been a bit concerned about Kara, knowing that her sister wouldn’t make things up. She’d just wished there had been something she could have done, instead of dismissing her.

 

            A hysterical laugh burst out of Kara’s mouth, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Alex didn’t know how close to the truth she was, and yet, it was even funnier knowing that Kara _had_ actually been herself then. It was the other times that she wasn’t herself that Alex should’ve been paying attention to.

 

            At Winn’s shout, Kara and Alex rushed to his side, listening as he excitedly babbled about the signals he was picking up. A few minutes later Kara was shooting off in the direction of the factory, ready to neutralise the threat.

 

\---

 

            She was curled up on her sofa in a pair of sweatpants and her favourite shirt with the hole in the seam at the neck. Moving onto her third container of noodles, Kara stared at the series of messages she’d sent Lena this morning, and the replies she’d received.

 

            Taking a deep breath, Kara balanced the noodles in her lap and started typing out a reply. They were sharing each other’s lives, that was already a huge secret and responsibility for them both. To make things work Kara had no choice but to tell Lena the truth.

 

**[Kara 7:05 pm]:** Sorry I didn’t reply, this isn’t an easy question to answer and to be honest I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer it!!!

 

**[Kara 7:05 pm]:** You know Superman?

 

            She didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

 

**[Lena 7:06 pm]:** Of course.

 

**[Kara 7:06 pm]:** He’s my cousin. I’m from Krypton too, so I guess to you I’m an alien

 

            Kara didn’t realise she was holding her breath as she waited for Lena to reply. She didn’t know why her opinion mattered so much to Kara, but it did. There was the added stress of this being her biggest secret too; she didn’t want to begin thinking about what a disaster it would be if Lena let it out.

 

**[Lena 7:07 pm]:** I figured as much, thank you for telling me.

 

            Kara frowned at the lack of emotion in Lena’s messages. From the apartment, her own investigating, and the way people talked to her when she was Lena, she’d managed to piece together a summary of the kind of person she assumed that Lena was. Calculating, logical and cold were probably words commonly used in conjunction with her. Still, what kind of person didn’t use emojis? Especially a twenty-four-year-old.

 

**[Kara 7:08 pm]:** Please, promise me you won’t tell anyone. If this got out it would ruin my life!!!! I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t even know you!!!

 

**[Lena 7:09 pm]:** You may not have realised, but I don’t have anyone to tell.

 

            Kara was filled with pity at Lena’s text. It was true, she had noticed the lack of friends and family in Lena’s life. If Kara had to assume, she’d say the closest person to a friend Lena had would be her assistant Jess, and she wasn’t sure if that counted.

 

**[Kara 7:10 pm]:** Thank you

 

**[Kara 7:10 pm]:** Now, some ground rules …


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a side note with the texting; I thought it'd be easier to just write the name of whoever is texting, rather than whose phone they're texting off, otherwise things would get too confusing.

            Lena woke up in Kara’s apartment.

 

            With a sigh, she reached for the phone on the bedside table, not even bothering to go and check her appearance. She tapped at the phone, sending a quick message to her phone for when Kara woke up.

 

 **[Lena 6:02 am]:** It’s Lena, I guess I’m in your body today. Let me know if there’s anything important I need to do.

 

            Getting up, Lena went to put a pot of coffee on, checking the date on the screen of the phone. It was a Sunday, which hopefully meant that Kara didn’t have anything planned. If she did, it would most likely be something to do with Supergirl, and Lena grimaced at the thought of going to fight criminals. Alex had roped Kara into extra practice thanks to Lena’s lack of skills, which had led to a few mishaps, and Lena had to endure them too whenever she woke up as Kara.

 

            With a fresh cup of black coffee, Lena went and curled up on the sofa, turning the TV on and flicking to a show Kara had recorded that she had started watching. She actually enjoyed the days where she got to be Kara, she didn’t have to worry about her company and could spend all day watching TV if she managed to switch on a weekend.

 

            Three episodes into her morning, and completely engrossed in the show, Lena jumped when her phone buzzed. Cursing, she dabbed at the coffee she had involuntarily thrown all over herself. Picking up the phone, Lena looked down at her own name on the screen.

 

 **[Kara 9:06 am]:** Hi! Looks like I’m you today then!!! :)

 

 **[Kara 9:06 am]:** Nothing planned for today, unless some people decide they want to cause some problems!!! Anything for you???

 

 **[Lena 9:06 am]:** Hopefully that won’t be a problem. I have one meeting today at 11am. Jess should remind you, but it’s with a potential seller of some harnessed energy from a celestial being. I’ve left notes for you explaining my research project.

 

 **[Kara 9:06 am]:** Sounds interesting!! I’ll let you know how it goes afterwards! :)

 

 **[Kara 9:07 am]:** Alex will probably stop by, but otherwise, enjoy your day!!! And try not to get your butt kicked!!!

 

            Lena let out a snort at the texts off Kara. She was way too enthusiastic for Lena’s taste, and Lena groaned thinking about her handling the business meeting. She quickly messaged Kara back.

 

 **[Lena 9:08 am]:** I don’t mean to be rude, but please don’t be nice to people today.

 

 **[Kara 9:10 am]:** Oh, okay! No problem!! So do you not usually smile at people? Should I act relaxed around them? Or should I keep it formal?

 

 **[Lena 9:11 am]:** No smiling. Ever. You should be relaxed but formal. Do not slouch, keep your chin up. You’re a woman, don’t give them a reason to doubt you.

 

 **[Kara 9:06 am]:** Sounds like it’ll be fun!!!! You’re so different from me it’s so weird!!! :)

 

            Rolling her eyes, Lena smiled slightly. What kind of person thought it was fun to have to pretend to imitate someone else? She turned her attention back to the TV, silently praying that Kara wouldn’t mess up the meeting.

 

\---

 

            It was just after twelve when she got a text off Kara. Lunging for the phone, Lena grabbed it and quickly read the message, smiling in relief.

 

 **[Kara 12:17 pm]:** The meeting went well!!!! No smiling and no extra niceness!

 

 **[Kara 12:17 am]:** They said they’ll have the energy delivered via courier tomorrow!!!

 

            Smiling slightly to herself, Lena replied, trying to express her gratitude as best as she could.

 

 **[Lena 12:18 pm]:** Thank you so much for doing this for me. Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

 **[Kara 12:18 pm]:** No problem. It was super cool!! Your job is so fun!!!! I even got your assistant to bring me ice-cream! :)

 

            Lena closed her eyes, shaking her head as she smiled. How did this girl manage to stay so optimistic and full of enthusiasm when she fought bad guys on a near daily basis? Lena was slightly bewildered. It was also quite disarming to finally understand the person whose body she was currently occupying. Lena wasn’t sure she’d be able to muster the same level of enthusiasm to try and pretend that she was Kara.

 

\---

 

            There was a knock on the door later that night, and Lena pulled it open to reveal Alex and Maggie.

 

            “Hey,” Alex greeted her, striding into the apartment, followed by Maggie who gave Lena a hello.

 

            “So, there’s this new sushi place downtown that I’ve been dying to try,” Maggie told Lena, flashing her dimples at her. “You in, little Danvers?” she asked, arching one eyebrow in question.

 

            “Sure, let me just get ready,” Lena replied, trying to sound upbeat but falling short of the excitement she was sure Kara would exude. Especially when it came to food Lena had found out. It must have been something to do with her Kryptonian metabolism, but by the sounds of things, Kara was a huge food lover.

 

            She slipped some shoes on, and pulled a coat on over the button up shirt she was wearing. Once she was ready, she walked back out to Alex and Maggie and picked up her bag.

 

            “Okay, let’s go,” she told them, giving them a hesitant smile.

 

            “Glasses,” Alex told her, and Lena scanned the room for them. Glasses on, they all walked out of the apartment and set off towards the sushi restaurant.

 

            The food was great, and Lena managed to bluff her way through the conversation as they made their way through four different kinds of sushi rolls. She made sure to pile her plate up high, and ate as much as she could stomach to avoid suspicion. Maggie was telling Alex and Lena about her day and the new case she had solved. Lena listened with polite interest; the names and places meaning nothing to her.

 

            They left the restaurant a few drinks later, and Maggie insisted that they stop and get ice-cream on their way home. Apparently Alex had lost another bet, which entitled Maggie to force her to eat vegan ice-cream.

 

            They were all walking down the street holding waffle cones with their ice-cream of choice when the sound of an explosion disrupted the normal sounds of the city’s nightlife. All three of them looked at each other in shock.

 

            “Go!” Alex yelled at Lena, yanking her ice-cram out of her hand.

 

            “Wha-, now? I-, how?” Lena stammered, looking at Alex with wide eyes.

 

            Sighing, Alex handed off both cones to Maggie and grabbed Lena by the front of her shirt, dragging her into the closest alley and tearing it open to reveal the bra Lena was wearing underneath.

 

            “Alex!” Lena yelped, her hands quickly clasping the front of her shirt together.

 

            “What the hell Kara! Where’s your suit?” Alex hissed.

 

            “At home!” Lena hissed back, trying to do the buttons on her shirt up.

 

            “What’s it doing at home? You’re supposed to wear it under your clothes in case of emergencies!” Alex scolded her.

 

            “Well sorry, I wasn’t planning on an explosion happened whilst I was out for dinner,” Lena snapped, crossing her arms over her now hidden chest. “What do you want me to do? Speed off in my underwear?” she asked Alex, rolling her eyes.

 

            “Just … go home and we’ll meet you onsite,” Alex sighed, walking back over to Maggie and taking her ice-cream back. Clearly she was pissed off at Lena; whether it was because of Lena's tone or because she'd forgotten to wear the suit under her clothes.

 

            “Hey, little Danvers, do you want to take you ice-cream with you?” Maggie called from the end of the alley. Lena scowled at her, feeling herself flush slightly as Maggie’s laughter reached her ears.

 

            She turned around and cut through to the other end of the alley, setting off towards Kara’s apartment to put her suit on.

 

* * *

 

            Kara woke up in Lena’s apartment, cringing at the annoyingly loud buzzing of the alarm. It was way too early to up, so Kara rolled back over and jammed her face back into the pillows.

 

            It was nine o’clock before she dragged herself out of bed, stifling a yawn as she stumbled to the kitchen. She needed coffee before anything else. She added milk to the mug and sighed when she realised that Lena didn’t keep sugar in her apartment. They’d have to talk about things like this, it would help make things easier for them both. She could have bought sugar herself, but at the same time, Kara felt uncomfortable spending Lena’s money without her permission.

 

            Taking her bitter coffee over to the table, Kara sat down checking Lena’s phone for messages. They messaged back and forth for a few minutes, and once Lena stopped replying, Kara got up and headed for the bathroom to get ready for the big meeting.

 

\---

 

            Kara tried her hardest to remain professional and distant as she looked at the two women sat in front of her. Although, she slipped up sometimes and her enthusiasm shone through the words as she rattled off details about Lena’s machine. Kara had taken the liberty of reading over the folders of information she had been instructed to give the businesswomen, so that she was familiar with the purpose of the meeting.

 

            By the end of the meeting, she had closed the deal. Filled with excitement, Kara smiled at the two women, shaking their hands as they all stood up. Hoping that Lena would be happy with the way things had progressed in the meeting, Kara smiled to herself. She was filled with a sense of pride at having managed to close the deal by herself. At least she knew reporting and saving people’s lives weren’t the only things she was good at.

 

            Heading back down to the labs, Kara carried her stack of files, filled with excitement as she thought about messaging Lena and sharing the good news. Kara felt like squealing, but kept her face in a neutral mask, knowing that if Lena had instructed her not to smile, her squealing in the lobby of the conference floor would not be appreciated.  

 

\---

 

            Smiling at Lena’s thank you message, Kara was filled with a warm feeling inside. And maybe the feeling of hunger, as it was lunchtime. Jess had already left to fetch Kara some food, and a small part of Kara basked in the feeling of having everything handed to her on a silver platter. Lena’s life seemed like a dream. Despite the endless paperwork, she had everything she could ever dream of or ask for.

 

            At the same time, Kara couldn’t help but think about Lena’s personal life. As far as Kara had been able to deduce, she didn’t have any friends, and she was estranged from her family, despite working in the family business. Busy thinking about the kind of person Lena was, Kara threw the phone onto the work bench, wincing when she overestimated her strength and the phone fell short of the table and smacked onto the granite floor.

 

            “No, no, no,” she muttered, getting up and hurrying over to the phone. She picked it up gingerly with two fingers, wincing as she took in the smashed screen.

 

            “Damn,” Kara cursed, trying to turn the phone on but getting no response. Well that was the end of talking to Lena for the day. Kara went searching for a piece of paper and a pen, quickly scrawling a note to Lena and storing it in her briefcase.

 

_I accidentally dropped your phone and it won’t turn on. I hope your phone is backed up, if not I’m realllllly sorry!!!! If you send me your bank details, I’ll wire the money to you for a replacement. Sorry!!!!_

 

\---

 

            Back at Lena’s apartment, Kara was wearing one of the expensive pairs of silk pyjamas in Lena’s closet, and was drinking some coffee as she muddled her way through the paperwork she’d brought home for Lena. She’d learnt a lot from being Cat Grant’s assistant, so she tried her best to help Lena out when she could.

 

            Kara also read over Lena’s notes on her Aether Propulsion machine, trying to make sense of the complex diagrams and Lena’s ramblings in the voice-memos that Kara was listening to. She may have been a journalist, but she had always been very scientifically minded. Especially back on Krypton, where she had been on track to become the youngest member of Krypton’s science guild.

 

            She frowned as she looked down at the data from the day the machine had exploded. Lena had used green kryptonite, and there was a nagging feeling inside Kara as she read over the schematics of the machine. They’d already come to the conclusion that they had started swapping bodies since that explosion, and Kara couldn’t help but draw a line from the kryptonite to herself, and their situation. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she, a Kryptonian, was the person who was switching bodies with Lena, who was running a science experiment with kryptonite. She made a mental note to bring it up with Lena when she could text her again.

 

            That night, Kara left the note and the broken phone on the kitchen counter for Lena to find when she got up in the morning. Kara felt guilty about breaking the phone and hoped that Lena would forgive her. She hoped that Lena would wake up without her alarm too.


	7. Chapter 7

            Weeks passed by in this fashion. Slowly she fell into a routine with both her life and Kara’s life; and soon found the two hard to distinguish. It was hard trying to stay optimistic and upbeat all the time, but the more she talked to Kara, the more of her personality she picked up, and the easier it became.

 

            Sometimes Lena forgot that Kara’s life wasn’t her own. At times, she felt more at home in Kara’s body, especially when she spent time with Alex and Maggie. It made her feel warm inside, which was a new feeling for Lena. For the first time in her life, she knew what it was like to have a family. To have someone who loved you. Sometimes Lena would find herself getting too wrapped up in Kara’s world, and it hurt when she shook herself back to reality and told herself that Alex didn’t love her. She loved Kara, and Lena wasn’t Kara.

 

            The hardest part had been when Lena had taken a trip to China for research purposes. Over the course of her research before constructing her machine, she’d travelled to multiple different countries, listening to local stories and legends related to time so that she could gather an understanding and try and find a common factor. Her most recent trip to China was a follow-up to what she had learnt on her last trip. She’d informed Kara before she went, just in case they happened to switch bodies during the trip. Except for one day where they switched, the rest of the trip went smoothly, with Lena learning a lot from her time at the monastery. She’d come back with a red braided bracelet around her left wrist, and the blessings of the monks to go with it.        

 

\---

 

            Once back in Metropolis, Lena got back to work, trying to apply what she had learnt on her trip to her machine. It was a Tuesday, and she couldn’t concentrate as she thought about Kara. Her new phone vibrated, breaking her out of her thoughts. Lena looked down at the screen, and her eyebrows rose slightly as she read Kara’s name.

 

            **[Kara 10:48 am]:** Hi! I figured that you’d be home by now, so I just wanted to let you know China was amazing!!!!

 

            **[Kara 10:48 am]:** Just let me know if you have any other plans to go on business trips! I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, just in case you have anything you need to do in France ……

 

            Lena let out a soft laugh at Kara’s texts. Nothing seemed to faze her, and maybe it was because she was a superhero, but Lena marvelled at her ability to take everything in stride.

 

            **[Lena 10:49 am]:** Noted.

 

            **[Lena 10:49 am]:** Thank you for being okay with the situation.

 

            **[Kara 10:52 am]:** No problem!!! What are friends for :)

 

            Lena shook her head as she read Kara’s message. Friends? They’d become as close as two people who were pretending to be each other could be, but she wouldn’t exactly say they were friends. Although, she did feel some sort of connection to Kara, as if her life had purpose. The hole in her chest was filled with Kara’s presence, even though she wasn’t a physical presence in Lena’s life.

 

\---

 

            That weekend, Kara’s mom was visiting her and Alex in National City. Lena was silently praying that she wouldn’t switch bodies, hoping that Kara would be able to experience the entire weekend with her mom. Lena wasn’t sure she was ready to handle parents too, especially considering her own mom couldn’t even be classed as a mom.

 

            She had no such luck though, and woke up on Saturday morning in Kara’s apartment. With a sigh, Lena got on with her day, mentally preparing herself to meet Eliza. Apparently she was supposed to be going to Alex’s apartment for dinner at five, so she decided to help Kara with her latest article until then.

 

            She pulled out the notes Kara had made and a piece of paper slid out from the notepad, slowly drifting down to the floor. Lena bent down to pick it up, frowning as she read the it.

 

            **Rules For Being Lena Luthor:**

  1. **NO SMILING!!!!**
  2. **Only drink black coffee or Jess gets suspicious**
  3. **Don’t be overly nice!!!!**
  4. **Frown a lot, but don’t look mad … just very annoyed**
  5. **Remember to be out of the house at 9am on Saturday’s bc the cleaning lady comes**
  6. **Don’t touch the machine!!!!!!!**
  7. **Don’t talk about Lex, EVER!**
  8. **Don’t talk to anyone, EVER!**
  9. **All passcodes are the first 6 digits of Pi bc Lena’s a giant nerd**
  10. **Try not to spend too much of her money on food**
  11. **Stop saving memes to her phone (she doesn’t know what they are)**



            And the list went on.

 

            Lena let out a sharp laugh, her insides tying themselves up into knots as she read the list. She felt warm inside at the thought of Kara taking the time to write down the rules for herself. A part of her also felt strange; she wasn’t used to people paying attention to her and she felt slightly unnerved at how much Kara had managed to pick up just from their texts. Even the unspoken things that Lena had never specifically told her to do or not to do.

 

            Lena couldn’t shake the feeling all morning, not even when she grew nervous at the fast approaching dinner with Eliza. She was relying on her comfortable relationship with Alex to help her get through the dinner without any blundering or mistakes. Lena had also been able to pick up on a lot of the small details about Kara that had been left out when they gave each other a quick summary of their life so far.

 

            At five o’clock Lena knocked on Alex’s door. She didn’t stiffen as she let Alex hug her briefly. Over the past few weeks she’d grown more comfortable with hugs; or at least she didn’t stiffen anymore.

 

            Nearby, she saw the woman she’d seen in countless photos and heard numerous stories about. Eliza. Lena gave her what she hoped was a warm smile as she walked over to her.

 

            “Kara!” Eliza smiled warmly at her, pulling Lena in close for a hug. This hug was different from the one Alex gave her, and a part of Lena didn’t want to let go. It was filled with all the love and concern a mother harboured for their children.

 

            “You look a little thin sweetheart, are you eating enough to keep up with your extracurricular activities?” Eliza asked, joking slightly at her superhero identity. She held Lena at arms length, checking to make sure she was okay. Lena swallowed thickly, a lump forming in her throat at Eliza’s concern.

 

            This. This was how a mother was supposed to be.

 

            “I-I’m fine,” Lena smiled at her, gently extracting herself from Eliza’s grasp.

 

            She enjoyed the night more than she could have imagined. Never in her whole life had she felt such a family bond like she did with Alex and Eliza. When she said goodbye later on, Lena found herself feeling sad at the thought that she would never have this for herself. Or perhaps she would have half of it through Kara, because Lena was still unsure if this was a permanent thing. At this point she wasn’t sure if she wanted things to go back to normal or not. She felt almost as if a large part of her would disappear along with Kara if this body switching was to ever stop.

 

\---

 

            The next morning, Lena messaged Kara about last night.

 

 **[Lena 8:49 am]:** Everything went well at dinner. I really like your mom.

 

 **[Kara 8:49 am]:** I’m glad you like her, and had fun :)

 

 **[Kara 8:50 am]:** Is there anything I need to know specifically?

 

 **[Lena 8:51 am]:** She asked about Mon-El. I filled her in on the basics, but I tried not to be too specific with the details of your relationship.

 

 **[Kara 8:53 am]:** Oh, okay thanks

 

            Over the past few weeks Lena had taken it upon herself to help Kara out with her relationship with him. Lena was by no means impressed by him, but it was obvious that he liked Kara, and from the way everyone else acted, she assumed that Kara liked him too. Hesitating for a second, Lena messaged Kara back.

 

            **[Lena 8:57 am]:** How did your date with Mon-El go the other day?

 

            **[Kara 8:59 am]:** It was okay, he’s not really into art though

 

            Lena couldn’t help but feel a little bit happy that the date hadn’t gone well, and she told herself that it was because she didn’t want to have to pretend to date as Kara too. What if she had to kiss him? There was no way she wanted to end up in that situation.

 

            **[Kara 9:01 am]:** I just think that maybe we should stop messing with each other’s personal relationships when we’re each other

 

            **[Lena 9:02 am]:** But you like him? Sorry that I’m actually trying to help you get a date, because by the sounds of things you haven’t been doing a great job of that yourself.

 

            Lena frowned at her phone, before slamming it down on the counter. What was Kara’s problem? She’d been trying to do her a favour, seeing as she was stuck in Kara’s body. If it bothered Kara that much then she wouldn’t bother anymore.

 

            **[Kara 9:04 am]:** I know, and I’m not trying to be rude

 

            **[Lena 9:04 am]:** Well you’re not doing a very good job at that either.

 

            **[Kara 9:05 am]:** I just think that maybe it would be better if we don’t complicate things for each other …

 

            Lena didn’t reply. Instead, she sulked for the rest of the afternoon, skulking around her lab as she tried to fix her machine. A part of her knew she was being irrational, but a large part of her felt like her anger was justified.

 

* * *

 

            Kara felt a sinking feeling in her stomach after her argument with Lena. She wasn’t sure why she was so affected by it; they’d only been aware of each other for a few months, and it wasn’t exactly like they knew each other. They didn’t even really talk beyond telling each other new plans, comments on how they should act and personal information they needed to know. Yet still, she felt like she knew Lena, probably better than anyone else considering she was so removed from people. Not that Kara could blame her after what her brother did.

 

            A big part of Kara had started feeling attached to Lena though. She wasn’t sure how long this swapping thing would last, but she knew that she was already too invested in Lena’s life to let her go easily. It would be painful for Kara to go back to her normal life, pretending like this had never happened.

 

            She didn’t message Lena back that day, deciding to let her deal with whatever was going on in her life that was making her angry or frustrated. Perhaps something was happening at L-Corp today that Kara wasn’t aware of.

 

\---

           

            A few days later, Kara was worried about Lena, having not heard off her since they had argued. Kara had been busy with her Supergirl duties, and content to let Lena have some space, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty. Every moment of her day was filled with thoughts about Lena. She couldn’t help herself. Swallowing her pride, Kara gave in and messaged Lena.

 

            **[Kara 3:33 pm]:** Hi, just checking to make sure we’re okay …

 

            She didn’t expect a reply straight away, and was called off to the DEO by Alex. Distracted by thoughts of Lena, Kara had managed to cause some unnecessary damage to National City after getting blasted through three walls and crashing into a car, before subduing the latest criminal wreaking havoc across the city.

 

            It wasn’t until the next day that she got a reply off Lena.

 

            **[Lena 7:12 am]:** Sorry, I’ve been busy with everything going on here at the moment. I’m sure you understand.

 

            **[Kara 7:13 am]:** Of course, let me know if you need help with anything :)

 

            She left Lena to whatever was troubling her, knowing that Lena would ask if she needed help. Kara was left to her own frustration and she was confused as to what she was frustrated about. A message off Mon-El made her sigh, he was confirming their date set for two week's time.


	8. Chapter 8

            Another month passed, and Lena found herself getting frequently more annoyed every time she had to pretend to like Mon-El, and every time Kara told Lena about him. She enjoyed her time with Alex and the rest of Kara’s friends though; finding herself looking forward to game nights and drinks at Maggie’s favourite bar.

 

            At work she was in a terrible mood, constantly snapping at Jess and finding herself unfocused on her work. Her machine still wouldn’t work, and Lena found herself losing patience with her project. It didn’t help that the city was in chaos at the moment, what with the bomb that had been set off at the congressional hearing the other day, resulting in Superman going into exile. On top of that, Lena had to deal with her brother’s growing insanity, watching from a safe distance as his manic ideas led him down a dark path.

 

            Still, Kara was constantly on her mind.

 

            Lena couldn’t stop thinking about her. About what she would be doing at this time of day. Wondering what story she was working on, or if she’d saved someone’s life today. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but Lena was attached to Kara, not just in their ability to switch bodies, but on a deeper level. Kara knew Lena better than anyone else, and Lena knew Kara too. Just thinking about Kara gave Lena a warm feeling inside and made her feel nervous.

 

            This new feeling unnerved Lena. Her strange behaviour hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jess, and one day, she found herself working up the courage to approach Lena. When Lena dismissed her from the lab, Jess hovered at the doorway, waiting for Lena to acknowledge her.

 

            “Yes?” Lena asked, raising one eyebrow as she took in her nervous looking assistant.

 

            “Um, I’m sorry Miss Luthor, forgive me if I’m overstepping but …” Jess started nervously, finding herself trailing off as her courage ran out.

 

            “Go on,” Lena said, spinning around in her chair as she looked at Jess with interest. She was probably the only person physically present in Lena’s life that she trusted, and it was rare for Jess to speak out of turn. Lena was intrigued.

 

            “Well … I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been acting strange lately,” Jess told Lena, carrying on when Lena nodded to her to continue. “It’s just, well, I’ve seen a lot of … notes, like, in the office and … on your tablet.”

 

            Lena’s mouth felt dry at the notes from Kara that Jess would have found. They didn’t directly talk about what was happening to them, but they liked to leave each other notes for the unimportant things they wanted each other to know.

 

            “And what is it?” Lena asked icily, not liking where the conversation was going.

 

            “It’s just … this Kara. She’s important to you,” Jess told Lena, who opened her mouth to reply. Lena’s expression turned to one of shock as Jess lifted a hand to cut her off before she spoke.

 

            “Sorry Miss Luthor, it wasn’t a question or up for debate. You’ve been acting strange lately and I know it’s because of her. I-I don’t know what’s happening between you … but I saw that she lives in National City, which means that you haven’t seen her. I don’t mean to tell you what to do Miss Luthor, but you need to go and see her.”

 

            Jess’ face was almost as white as Lena’s as she firmly shut her mouth, staring down at the floor as she waited for Lena to fire her or reprimand her.

 

            “You seem awfully concerned with my personal life, Jess,” Lena smiled wryly, “and apparently you’re not as much of a mouse as I thought.”

 

            “Forgive me, I know I spoke out of turn, but I’ve been with you for a while now Miss, and I care about your happiness. Right now you’re happy, but … not. It’s because you miss her.”

 

            “Well aren’t you … insightful,” Lena said, waving away Jess’ concerns. She was slightly embarrassed that she hadn’t been as careful as she had thought she was being, and a bit shocked at Jess’ perceptiveness.

 

            “I-I’ll leave you to it,” Jess mumbled, apologising once more before she turned around and pulled open the door.

 

            “Jess?” Lena called after her before she walked out. “Call me Lena.”

 

            Turning back to her blueprints, Lena smiled slightly. She was impressed by Jess’ courage, not many people had the courage to straight talk the daughter of the owner of the company. She spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about what Jess had said, finally coming up with a decision.

 

            She would go to National City and find Kara.

 

\---

 

            The train pulled into the station at eleven o’clock.

 

            Disembarking, Lena walked through the station and out to the car waiting for her outside. She gave the name of the hotel she was staying at and sat back in the seat, looking out at the city. It was different to Metropolis, yet so familiar at the same time, from the countless number of days Lena had spent wandering around the city in Kara’s body.

 

            Once at her hotel, Lena dumped her overnight bag and walked back outside. With her phone, she brought up the maps app and found the nearest place she knew Kara frequented. She could’ve just shown up at Kara’s apartment, but Lena felt uncomfortable showing up with no warning. She hadn’t told Kara she was coming because she wasn’t sure what her answer would be, and this was something Lena needed to do for herself.

 

            The local coffee shop that Kara frequented was the closest place to Lena, so she set off in that direction, deciding to kill two birds with one stone and get lunch whilst she was there.

 

            Kara wasn’t there when Lena walked inside the café, so she took a seat in the back corner, facing the door just in case Kara walked in. She didn’t want to miss her. Ordering a coffee and a sandwich, Lena sat there praying for Kara to walk in and order her own lunch.

 

            Lena fanaticised about Kara walking in and stopping in her tracks as she met Lena’s eyes. She wondered if Kara’s eyes would be as blue as they looked in the mirror. Kara would smile, and she’d rush over, filled with the excitement Lena knew she exuded. She wouldn’t have to say anything, she’d just sit down and they’d both laugh at the absurdness of the situation.

 

            But she didn’t show up.

 

            With a sigh, Lena finished her sandwich and drained the rest of her coffee before standing up and leaving. With some reservations, Lena decided to make her way to CatCo, knowing that Kara was a reporter there. Having come to the café with Alex, Lena knew her way to the building from here, so determined, she set off in the right direction.

 

\---

 

            Lena entered the building and made her way over to the front desk. The person manning the counter looked up as Lena approached.

 

            “Can I help you?” the man asked with a polite smile.

 

            “What floor are the reporter’s offices on?” Lena asked.

 

            The man replied, and with a quick thank you, Lena walked over to the elevators. The doors opened as the elevator stopped, and Lena stepped out into the floor full of desks. Looking around, she tried to spot Kara, but had no luck. She asked the first person she saw if they knew where Kara Danvers was, but they said she wasn’t a reporter, no matter how much Lena insisted that she was.

 

            With a sigh, Lena walked back over to the elevator, deciding to try every floor until she found the one that Kara worked on. Pressing the button for level one, Lena’s stomach dropped along with the elevator as she zoomed down.

 

            She was up to level fifteen, and still had no luck finding Kara. With a sigh, Lena walked back over to the elevator again, pressing the button and waiting for the door to slide open. She was met with a pair of familiar sight. Slightly taken aback, Lena was speechless as she walked into the elevator and stood next to Kara.

 

            It was her. She was real.

 

            Lena had no idea what to say, and she stood there fiddling with the red knotted bracelet on her wrist. Kara hadn’t looked up from her phone when Lena walked in, and paid no attention to her as they made their way up. Working up the courage to say something, Lena cleared her throat slightly.

 

            “Kara?” Lena asked.

 

            She stared into those blue eyes as Kara looked at Lena with a look of surprise on her face. Kara gave her a warm smile, but there was no familiarity behind it. It was as if she was looking at a stranger.

 

            “I-it’s me, Lena,” Lena told her, smiling hesitantly.

 

            “Sorry, have we met before?” Kara asked, her forehead wrinkling in confusion as she looked at Lena. Wincing as if she had been slapped, Lena drew back, a look of hurt flashing across her face. They both stood there in awkward silence, with Kara looked at Lena curiously and Lena staring down at the floor.

 

            The doors opened at the next level and a crowd of people tried to cram themselves into the elevator with them. At the next floor, Lena pushed her way out of the elevator, feeling an emptiness inside her. She stopped just outside the door at a shout, feeling people push past her shoulders as she stood there.

 

            “Wait!”

 

            Lena turned around, meeting Kara’s eyes. She was frowning at Lena, a confused look on her face, as if she was trying to remember something.

 

            “Lena,” she whispered. Not in recognition, but as if she was testing the sound of the name on her lips.

 

            “Kara,” Lena whispered back, sadness creeping up on her as she gave Kara a small smile. The doors started to close, and Lena quickly undid the bracelet on her wrist, throwing it to Kara before the doors slid shut. The last thing she saw was those blue eyes staring straight back at her.

 

\---

 

            Lena caught the next train back to Metropolis, feeling empty and upset. Her pride was wounded too, and Lena felt embarrassed at having put herself out there only to have Kara reject her. There was no way that Kara couldn’t not know her, she’d been living Lena’s life for her over the past half a year. Fighting back the anger and heartache she was feeling, Lena tried to push Kara out of her mind. She promised herself that she wouldn’t text her anymore, and praying that whatever was causing them to switch bodies would stop so that Lena could carry on with her life.


	9. Chapter 9

            A few days later, Lena was stood on the roof of LexCorp, watching the city descend into chaos around her. Her brother had orchestrated this, it was a design of his own creation and Lena was filled with anger and shame at what he had done. She had tried so hard to bring him back from the edge, and now he had pit heroes against each other in his quest for power. Lena knew deep down that he had been responsible for the explosion at Capitol Hill too. He was responsible for the destruction of Metropolis and Lena knew she would never forgive him. He had stopped being her brother a long time ago, no matter how much he liked to pretend they were the loving siblings they were as kids.

 

            She pulled out her phone and looked down at the last text she had sent Kara, telling her that Superman and Batman were in town. A part of her was hoping that Kara would show up too, dressed in her Supergirl suit and ready to save the day, as always. The city was filled with the sound of helicopters and the distant sounds of fighting. Looking back up, Lena watched as a large shape hurdled through the darkness of the night, straight towards her. She smiled slightly, thinking it was Kara.

 

            With a roar, the genetically-engineered mutant crashed onto the roof.

 

* * *

 

 

            Kara was strolling along the bridge with Mon-El, after another date at an art museum. This time he had tried to act interested, for Kara’s sake, but she couldn’t even pretend to fake interest herself. She was too busy thinking about Lena; it had been months since she had last heard off her or switched bodies with her.

 

            “Kara?” Mon-El jerked her out of her thoughts.

 

            “Oh, sorry what were you saying?” Kara asked, giving him a bright smile too wide to be real.

 

            “I just, I’m confused,” he told her, frowning slightly. “I think that maybe a part of you really did like me, but you don’t anymore.”

 

            Kara opened her mouth to defend herself, but he was right of course. She could barely focus on anything. Things about Lena’s life were slipping away, back into the hazy feeling of everything being a dream that she’d experienced when this first started. She could feel Lena slipping away.

 

            “It’s okay, I get it. There’s someone else,” Mon-El gave her a sad smile. “I don’t want to be your second choice, Kara, and it’s fine, we can still be friends. Just … go and tell him how you really feel.”

 

            Kara’s heart felt like it was being squeezed in her chest. She almost let out a laugh when Mon-El said ‘him’ but she was too caught up in her own emotional turmoil. If she was being honest, without Lena’s help she wouldn’t have made it this far with Mon-El. Of course, he was the only person here similar to her which had added to their relationship, but now she knew for sure that were was nothing between them.

 

            “I’m sorry,” Kara whispered, giving him a sad smile.

 

            “Don’t be,” Mon-El reassured her, giving her shoulder a slight squeeze. “I’ll leave you to it then. See you at work, Kara.”

 

            She watched him turn around and walk off, leaving her along on the bridge. Taking out her phone, Kara tried sending Lena a message.

 

            **[Kara 1:42 pm]:** Hi, just wanted to let you know that Mon-El and I broke up

 

 **[Kara 1:42 pm]:** So, you know, if we switch again, don’t worry about it

 

            Kara’s shoulders drooped in disappointment as two red exclamation points showed up next to the texts. It had been doing it since the last text she’d received off Lena. Nothing was going through. The only think Kara could think of was that Lena had switched numbers and had cut things off with Kara, and maybe she’d found a way to sever the connection between them too, and hadn’t told her that either. A few weeks back Kara had called L-Corp and asked for Lena, getting a hostile response from the secretary who scolded Kara for playing pranks before hanging up. Dejected, Kara had resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to talk to Lena anymore.

 

            With a sigh, Kara pocketed her phone and went back to her apartment. She moped around all afternoon before calling Alex and asking her to come over. There was a knock on the door shortly after, revealing Alex with coffee and cinnamon rolls for them both.

 

            “Hey, what’s wrong? It sounded serious so I brought food and coffee,” she said, looking at Kara with concern as she sat down in the kitchen.

 

            “Um, well I broke things off with Mon-El,” Kara started, sitting down opposite her sister and took her coffee.

 

            “Okay … but that’s not what’s wrong,” Alex said, raising an eyebrow at her sister as she waited for her to tell her the truth.

 

            “It’s … well, it’s hard to explain,” Kara said nervously, fiddling with the red knotted bracelet on her wrist.

 

            “Okay,” Alex prompted her, taking a bite out of her cinnamon roll. She pushed Kara’s towards her, knowing that she ate when she was nervous. Or any time at all really, but Alex knew the food would help calm her down either way.

 

            “So, um, you know when I was acting weird a few months ago?” Kara asked, taking in Alex’s nod before continuing, “well, uh, see the thing is, I was … switching bodies … with someone else.”

 

            Alex sat there in silence, staring at Kara with a slight frown.

 

            “Okay, so I know how that sounds, but it’s true,” Kara rushed out, trying to justify her story. “She, uh, her name is Lena. She lives in Metropolis. She was building this machine, it does something with time, I’m not sure what, but it kind of backfired and we’ve been switching bodies for like, the past six months.”

 

            Alex opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to find something to say. “Okay … well that explains why nothing showed up on the scans and tests. And why you were acting strange, because for a while there you genuinely were acting like a different person. And the dreams you told us about … the billionaire.”

 

            Kara let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, her shoulders sagging in relief as she listened to Alex’s words. She believed her. She didn’t think Kara was lying or losing her mind.

 

            “So, what about her?” Alex asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

 

            “Well, it’s been months and we … we haven’t switched again. I can’t get in contact with her, it’s like she’s … gone,” Kara said, gesturing vaguely around.

 

            “Gone? What do you mean gone? You said she lives in Metropolis?” Alex asked, giving Kara a confused look.

 

            “Yes, but I-I can’t get hold of her, and I just-, I feel empty inside. At the beginning I’d wake up thinking it was a dream, and I would feel empty and lost, but when I realised what was happening it was like I felt whole again, like she was a part of me. Now, she’s slipping away again and I-I can’t remember some things. It feels like a dream again. I’ve been sketching everything down, trying not to let it go but that’s all I have left of some memories,” Kara explained, her eyes turning slightly glassy as she spoke.

 

            “I-, well … we have to find her,” Alex told Kara, giving her a small smile.

 

            “We?” Kara asked, frowning slightly.

 

            “Pack a bag, we’re going to Metropolis,” Alex told her, “I’ll call James and sort out work for you. And I’ll see if Maggie can get time off too, a detective can’t hurt.”

 

            Kara jumped out of her seat and pulled her sister into a tight hug. “Thank you! Thank you, Alex, for everything,” Kara whispered.

 

            “What kind of sister would I be if I didn’t believe you,” Alex smiled. “Besides, this is actually probably one of the least weird things we’ve ever had to deal with at the DEO, so there’s that.”

 

            Laughing, Kara ran off to her room, quickly packing a bag before re-joining Alex in the kitchen. Turning to give Kara a smile, she said goodbye to the person on the phone and hung up.

 

            “That was Maggie. She’s going to meet us at the train station,” Alex explained, putting her leather jacket on. “You ready to go?”

 

            Kara nodded, smiling widely at the thought of the trip they were about to go on. Alex wouldn’t let her down, they’d find Lena. With a deep breath to calm herself down, Kara opened the door and walked outside, locking the door behind Alex.

 

\---

 

            The train ride was long, but it didn’t dampen Kara’s excitement. She sat across from Alex and Maggie and they came up with a plan on the way to Metropolis.  Kara had packed a few of her sketches, and they poured over them, trying to find any clues to where they should start looking. Kara’s favourite one was one looking down and out at the city spread below. She knew it was taken from the roof of a building, but she couldn’t remember which one. Her memories of Lena were getting hazier and hazier the longer she went without switching bodies. All Kara knew was that it was somewhere she and Lena both liked to go for some peace and quiet during the work day. If they could find the building, she’d be able to find Lena.

 

            Hours later, they pulled into the station at Metropolis and joined the crowd of people exiting the station. Outside, Kara felt a sense of familiarity, not at any of the landmarks outside the station, but at the general feel of the city. It had been a long time since she’d been here in Lena’s body, but something at the back of Kara’s mind clicked into place.

 

            Looking around, all three of them felt overwhelmed at the sheer size of the city. How were they going to find the building?

 

            “How about we get lunch before we start walking around?” Alex suggested, giving Kara’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze to let her know they weren’t backing down now. Whatever happened now, they would stay here until they found Lena, if only so Alex could give her sister some closure.

 

            They walked into the nearest café and ordered sandwiches and coffee. Sat in the back corner, they looked at the sketches once more, trying to find the name of a shop or a street sign, but Kara hadn’t included such small details.

 

            “Okay, so this one on the rooftop looks like it’s a really tall building, so maybe we should start by checking the streets around all the office buildings in the city,” Maggie suggested.

 

            “The city is full of skyscrapers!” Kara exclaimed, “it’ll take us a year to do that.”

 

            “Hey, don’t lose hope before we even get started. We’ll figure it out, and this is as good a place to start as any,” Alex said soothingly, trying to calm Kara down. With a sigh, Kara nodded in agreement with Maggie’s plan.

 

\---

 

            They wandered aimlessly all day. Occasionally they got on a bus and let it take them around the city, whilst all three of them kept an eye out for anything that matched Kara’s drawings. They came up empty-handed, and made their way to the hotel Alex had booked for them.

 

            Kara sat down on the edge of her bed, feeling disappointed and worn out. It had only been half a day, and she knew the chances of finding Lena straight away in such a big city had been slim. It was disheartening though, to want something so badly and not know when you would get it. Still, Kara would try again tomorrow. She would try every day until she found Lena.


	10. Chapter 10

            They searched for a week.

 

            Every morning, they would get breakfast and set off in search of Lena, and every night they’d come back exhausted and empty-handed. They made the most of the city whilst they were there though, and as soon as the sun started setting they’d hit up dive bars and restaurants. Alex and Maggie tried their hardest to take Kara’s mind off Lena.

 

            Kara left Alex and Maggie in bed that morning, deciding to let them sleep whilst she got a head start. She left a note for them to find on the hotel stationary and walked downstairs. She walked in the opposite direction they’d gone yesterday, hoping that something would look familiar. Kara felt a bubble of panic growing in her chest as she grasped for memories that were slipping away from her. She could remember less today than she could yesterday.

 

            Without any luck, Kara walked back towards to hotel and met Alex and Maggie at the café they’d been going to every morning for breakfast. With a sigh she walked into the shop and spotted Alex and Maggie in their usual corner. She ordered three coffees before picking her way through the tables and chairs to join them.

 

            “Hey,” Kara greeted them wearily, sitting in the empty seat next to Maggie.

 

            “I was just saying to Maggie that maybe we should take a bus further out of the centre of the city. There’s a lot of office buildings out that way, we might get lucky,” Alex told her, giving her a smile of encouragement.

 

            Kara was silent for a moment, before she looked at her sister with tired eyes. “I think … that you both should just … go home.”

 

            “What! No, we promised we’d help you find her, we’re not leaving you here alone,” Maggie argued, with Alex voicing her own protest.

 

            “It’s just-, c-can you think of anything else? Can you just try and think about her last name? That would be _so_ helpful,” Maggie asked.

 

            “No, I already told you, I can’t remember what it is. I-I know it’s there at the back of my mind, just out of reach. I just … I can’t remember what it is,” Kara replied, her voice hitching as she tried to keep her emotions in check.

 

            She pulled the crumpled sketches out of her bag, spreading them over the table. “These are all we have to go on. Everything else is slipping away,” Kara told them bitterly.

 

            The waitress came over with their coffee, smiling as she set the cups down.

 

            “Oh, you went to Heroes Park, huh?” she asked, gesturing to Kara’s sketches.

 

            “Excuse me?” Kara asked, her forehead furrowing in confusion.

 

            “The explosion site, at LexCorp,” the waitress said, frowning slightly. “You’re a pretty good drawer, I’d know that place anywhere. It’s sad what happened there. Three years on and I still can’t believe all those people were lost.”

 

            “Thank you,” Kara mumbled, staring down at the drawings whilst the waitress walked away. Alex pulled out her laptop, and quickly typed in LexCorp, bringing up a mixture of photos of the building in Kara’s sketches and a desolate explosion site full of rubble and ruin.

 

            “Th-this has to be the building,” Alex said, turning the screen around to show Kara and Maggie.

 

            “What? No. The building hasn’t been blown up, that’s not the right one,” Kara argued, although she knew it was because it was an exact replica of the sketches she’d drawn, as well as the surrounding area.

 

            Alex quickly typed in Heroes Park, seeing if that also matched Kara’s drawings. She was sure it was the right place. Why else would Kara have drawn them? “Wait a second … this statue, in the park. It’s not the same.”

 

            Maggie picked up the drawing of the statue of Superman that had been erected in his honour, and looked at the S symbol erected in the exact same spot after he had ‘died’ a few years back. “I-I remember this. Everyone thought your cousin died. He was there, with the others. They fought that alien that Lex Luthor created,” Maggie explained, whispering so the other customers wouldn’t overhear them.

 

            “Well that was three years ago,” Kara said, frowning. “How can I have seen this statue if it was destroyed in that fight? Clark’s symbol isn’t there.”

 

            “I-I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “I’m sure it’s the same building though, so I guess that’s where Lena works? Maybe she’ll show up on google if I search it with LexCorp.

 

            “Wait, the company’s called L-Corp now,” Maggie said, remembering the name change it had undergone at the new CEO’s insistence.

 

            “Okay,” Alex replied, typing away at her keyboard. It only took her two seconds to find Lena. She looked up at Kara, her eyes wide with horror and her face white with shock.

 

            “What? What is it?” Kara asked, her stomach filling with dread at Alex’s expression.

 

            Maggie grabbed the laptop, spinning it around and reading the screen as Kara tried to take it off her. A few seconds later she was wearing an expression similar to Alex’s as she stared at Kara. Pulling it off Maggie, Kara spun the laptop around stared at the screen.

 

**_Sister Of LexCorp CEO, Lex Luthor, Killed In Explosion._ **

****

**_Lex Luthor Sentenced To 37 Life Sentences For The Deaths Of Hundreds In The Metropolis Battle, Including The CEO's Younger Sister, Lena Luthor._ **

****

**_Lena Luthor, Sister Of LexCorp CEO, Amongst Hundreds Of Fatalities At LexCorp Explosion._ **

 

            Her entire world shattered.

 

            “No, no, no,” she stammered, her voice breaking as she read the page. “This is wrong. It doesn’t make sense, it’s impossible.”

 

            “Kara-“ Alex murmured, reaching across the table to grab her hand. Kara pulled herself out of Alex’s grip, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at the countless news reports of Lena’s death.

 

            “H-how,” Kara cried, feeling as if she had been punched in the gut. She scrambled for her phone, “I-I have m-messages off her.”

 

            She found Lena’s name in her phone and stared in disbelief at the dozens of unsent messages and no replies staring back at her. “No, this can’t be happening. W-we used to text. She text me back, we did, I swear,” Kara babbled, her heart breaking as she clutched the front of her shirt, right where the empty feeling, left by Lena, sat.

 

            She clicked on a link of some news footage of the explosion. A look of horror was plastered on her face as she watched the disfigured alien blast apart the roof of the building, the explosion radiating outwards from the top of LexCorp, destroying everything in it’s path. A flicker of a memory tickled the back of Kara’s mind; Lena liked to spend time on rooftops. She stamped the memory down, a bubble of hope rising inside her as she silently prayed that Lena wasn’t on the roof that night.

 

            Grabbing the sketches, Kara stood up abruptly, stuffing them into her bag.

 

            “Kara, wait, what are you doing?” Alex asked, scrambling to grab her laptop and her bag as Kara walked away from the table.

 

            “I-I have to find out the truth, Alex. I have to fix this,” Kara said, her lower lip trembling as she looked at Alex and Maggie with eyes shining from the tears she held back.

 

            “Kara-“ Alex started, but was cut off by Kara taking a step forward and pulling her into a tight hug.

 

            “Go home, both of you. Thank you, really, but I need to do this alone now,” Kara mumbled, nodding to Alex as she swallowed thickly. Without another word, Kara turned around and left the café, flagging down the first taxi she saw and giving the driver instructions to take her to L-Corp.

 

\---

 

            The building looked exactly like the drawings. Kara stared up at the glass and metal structure soaring high above her. Her face was pale and drawn as she tried to keep her emotions in check. She had to see for herself, she wouldn’t believe it otherwise.

 

            With a deep breath she walked inside.

 

            The layout was oddly familiar, and Kara knew that she was in the right place. She wasn’t sure if it was exactly the same, because she couldn’t remember the old building, but there was something about it that felt familiar. Walking over to the front desk, Kara wondered how she should approach this. If she asked for Lena and her fears were true, then she would get a bad reaction from the secretary, but how else would she find out?

 

            A woman walked through the lobby, cutting in front of Kara as she walked to the elevators. Kara was filled with a sense of familiarity at the sight of her. She should know her; they’d met before; she was sure of it.

 

            “Hey! Excuse me! Ma’am,” Kara called after her, rushing after her. The woman turned around, looking at Kara with a look of surprise and polite interest on her face.

 

            “I’m sorry, I-I’m an … old friend of Lena Luthor’s,” she stammered, looking at the woman with uncertainty.

 

            The woman looked as if she’d been punched in the stomach at the mention of Lena’s name. She stared back at Kara, hesitating before she spoke. “Kara?”

 

            “Wha-, yes. How did you know?” Kara asked, sounding surprised.

 

            “Miss Luthor never had any other friends,” the woman smiled sadly.

 

            “C-can you tell me what happened?” Kara asked, her eyes prickling with tears. The woman’s words felt right to Kara, deep down she knew that Lena didn’t have friends. All she’d had was this woman and Kara.

 

            “Perhaps you’d like to go down to her lab?” the woman asked, uncertain as she spoke. “It’s far underground so i-it survived the explosion.”

 

            Kara couldn’t speak, so she nodded to the woman, who pressed the down button on the elevator. They stepped in when the doors opened, and stood in silence as the elevator took the down.

 

            “I-I’m Jess by the way,” the woman said. Kara nodded, adding the name to her memory.

 

\---

 

            Kara wandered around the lab, her hands shaking as she picked up the tools and folders scattered around the room. They were all Lena’s. She couldn’t hold back the tears as she looked at the handwriting, so familiar from all of the notes Kara had off her when Lena was in her body. They dripped down onto the pages, smudging the ink that had been forgotten about for the past three years.

 

            She walked over to the machine at the back of the room and her fingers trembled as she reached out and gently stroked the metal of the machine. “The Aether Propulsion machine,” Kara whispered.

 

            “Her greatest project,” Jess murmured, coming up next to Kara. There was sadness and pity in her eyes as she looked at Kara. Both for her own loss and Kara’s fresh pain.

 

            A spark of hope appeared inside Kara as she got an idea. She looked at Jess, brushing away her tears as she prayed that her plan would work. “I need green kryptonite,” Kara told her.

 

            “I’m sorry?” Jess said, taken aback by Kara’s request.

 

            “Listen, Jess,” Kara began, “this might sound weird, but I’m going to save her. I’m going to bring her back, and I need your help to do it. I need green kryptonite to do it.”

 

            “I don’t understand,” Jess frowned at Kara.

 

            “She was acting strange for a while, wasn’t she? Not herself?” Kara asked, tilting her head to the side as she stared at Jess.

 

            “Yes. I-it was because of you,” Jess smiled slightly, “I made her go and see you, just before she …”

 

            “It was me. I was her. We were switching places, we were switching times,” Kara rambled, “I know it sounds crazy, but her machine worked. Maybe not in the way she planned but it messed with time and our bodies somehow. I need you to trust me, okay?”

 

            “I’m sorry, Kara. This … this is crazy,” Jess said slowly. “I know how much you meant to her, and I can see she meant a lot to you too, but I think you should leave now.”

 

            Kara slid her glasses down her nose, sending a quick laser beam to blast a hole in one of the walls, before sliding them back into place. “I’m Supergirl, I know what crazy is, and now I’m telling you I’m going to try and fix this.”

 

            Jess looked at her with shock, her mouth hanging open as she looked back and forth between Kara and the cracked cement littering the floor beneath the huge chunk gouged out of the wall. Without another word, she turned around walked out of the lab, leaving Kara alone.

 

            She didn’t know if Jess was coming back or not. Perhaps she was already phoning security to have Kara removed, or maybe she was phoning the Daily Planet to tell them Supergirl’s real identity. Either way, Kara didn’t care right now. She pulled all the folders off the shelves, rifling through the pages and pages of notes until she found the calculations and calibrations for the day Lena had run the experiment with the green kryptonite.

 

            Kara looked up as the door opened and Jess slipped back in, carrying a small box in her arms. Filled with relief and gratitude, Kara smiled at Jess, mumbling her thanks as Jess carried the box over to the machine.

 

            “I-I believe you. I-I don’t know why, and I don't understand, but I believe you anyway,” Jess stammered, still staring at Kara with wide eyes and a look of shock.

 

            She helped Kara enter the same calculations that were written down, and they calibrated the machine so that it was exactly the same as the time the machine had exploded. Kara lifted the lid of the box and stared down at the small lump of kryptonite glowing within it. The effects of the kryptonite were already affecting her and she hadn’t even touched it yet. Ignoring the feelings of weakness that flooded Kara’s body, she lifted the lump and placed it in the space in the middle.

 

            “Um, Kara,” Jess interrupted her. “I-, you-, won’t the kryptonite hurt you? Superman … it weakens him. You’re the same as him.”

 

            “Yes, I can already feel the effects of it,” Kara confessed.

 

            “The machine, it exploded last time,” Jess told her, and Kara smiled at her, nodding to let Jess know that she already knew. There was a chance that the explosion would blast her into pieces, but there was also a chance it would be small enough to reconnect her with Lena, especially when the time component was taken into consideration.

 

            Kara picked up her phone and left a voice memo for Alex and Eliza, just in case it went bad. She hadn’t planned on it going this way when she said goodbye to Alex earlier on, and she wanted to say goodbye properly, in case she never got the chance.

 

            “Jess?” Kara asked, catching the woman’s attention. “I-, if things go bad, c-can you send this to my sister? Please.”

 

            Jess nodded, taking the phone off Kara and pocketing it. She opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t know what to say. She knew she couldn’t stop Kara at this point, and because of that, she desperately wanted Kara’s plan to work. She wanted her boss back. Lena might not have had friends, but she’d always had Jess.

 

            “Thank you. Y-you should go now, Jess,” Kara told her, giving her a slight smile.

 

            Jess nodded, turning around and heading over to the door. She pushed it open and hesitated, turning back around to look at the blonde busy fiddling with the machine, double-checking everything was in order to blow herself up. “Kara?” Jess softly called after her.

 

            Kara turned around, her eyebrows raised in a silent question.

 

            “Bring her back,” Jess told her, giving Kara a sad smile before walking out and shutting the door tightly behind her.

 

\---

 

            A few minutes later Kara stood in front of the machine. Slowly, she turned it on and flicked the correct switches, watching the lights turn on and the machine wake. It quietly whirred, powering up for the first time in three years.

 

            With a silent prayer, and a silent promise to Lena, Kara flipped the last switch. She closed her eyes, falling to her knees as the machine pulsed, sending waves of kryptonite towards her.

 

            The last thing Kara thought of as the machine exploded was Lena. She could see the green light of the explosion through her eyelids, so similar to the green of Lena’s eyes.

 

            And then there was nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is confusing. I highly recommend the film bc it's amazing and will probs explain this better. Even if you understand it, you should watch it anyway, bc the animation is amazing and it will make you cry.

            She was tumbling through an endless green, the exact same colour as the kryptonite. It stretched as far as Kara could see, and she wasn’t sure how long she fell.

 

            Eventually it slowly faded away to darkness, and out of it a small dot of light appeared. Kara looked down at her hand and saw one end of the red knotted bracelet tied around the little finger on her left hand. The other end tugged her in the direction of the speck of light, twisting and stretching out before her.

 

            Hurtling towards the light, it grew bigger in size, turning into the view of Metropolis spread out before Kara. Still the string pulled Kara closer, speeding over the city, towards the huge tower in front of her. Kara watched on as a large shape sped towards LexCorp, the city painted shades of orange as explosions and destruction rained down on it.

 

            Suddenly, the darkness got lighter, and the view city changed to endless white. Flashes of light flew past, coloured every shade of the rainbow. They twisted into different shapes, and Kara watched on as they formed the shape of a baby.

 

            Visions formed before her, the strands of colour twisting into shapes and scenes, before reforming into knew images. There was a baby, green eyes and dark hair, held in the arms of its mother. There was the same girl, older now and being taken from her dead mother by a man. Here she was, a teenager, crying and clinging to her father, who lay in a hospital bed. They were all of Lena.

 

            Kara watched on as the visions changed to Lena reading notes left behind by Kara. Lena staring at herself in her mirror, crying at the thought of Kara being happy with Mon-El. Then there was Lena telling Jess she was going to National City.

 

            Then there was Lena on the day Lex pit Batman against Superman. Kara let out a shout and it echoed around her. She begged Lena not to go to work today, to get out of there before she got hurt.

 

            The string pulled at Kara’s hand, turning her around. She stared at the scene before her. The alien monster roaring from the top of the building, an orange glow starting in its chest before spreading outwards, obliterating everything in its path.

 

            Kara screamed Lena’s name. Over and over again she screamed her name, pleading and begging for Lena to reply. She watched in horror as she fell through the explosion, the burning orange turning into a suffocating darkness.

 

            And then there was nothing.

 

* * *

 

            With a gasp, Kara shot up in bed.

 

            Silk sheets twisted around her body and dark hair fell into her eyes.

 

            “Lena!”

 

            Kara scrambled out of bed, lunging for the bathroom door. She let out a cry of relief as she looked at the familiar green eyes staring back at her as Kara probed at her face. Running back into the bedroom, she grabbed the phone, looking down at the date.

 

            Today.

 

            Today was the day Lena would die.

 

            Kara pulled a coat and some shoes on over the sweatpants and t-shirt Lena was wearing, before rushing out of the apartment. A part of Kara was aware that these were the clothes Lena had bought for Kara to feel comfortable in. Even after they had stopped switching, Lena had taken to wearing them.

 

            Outside, Kara flagged down a taxi and told the driver to take her to LexCorp. She was shaking with nerves and adrenaline as the cab made its way through the city. Several blocks from the building, the traffic was thick, and Kara jumped out of the cab, throwing a handful of notes at the driver.

 

            She ran the rest of the way to the building, weaving in and out of people, and occasionally bumping into them as she fought her way through the crowds. Eventually, the building came into sight, and Kara let out a strangled sound as she sped towards it.

 

            Inside, she ignored the strange looks she got from the other workers, and made her way to the bank of elevators spread before her.

 

            The roof.

 

            She knew that was where she would find Lena in her body.

 

* * *

 

            Lena bolted upright, staring around the room at the shards of kryptonite and twisted pipes. Her hands scrambled at her chest, checking for any wounds, and found that she was fine. She knew she was in her lab, but she couldn’t remember getting there.

 

            And then she realised. These were Kara’s hands. These were Kara’s clothes.

 

            Crawling towards the ruined machine, Lena picked up pieces of it with shaking hands. What had Kara been doing here in her lab? What had she done to Lena’s machine?

 

            The door opened and Lena whipped her head around.

 

            “Jess!” she exclaimed, climbing to her feet as she looked at her assistant with confusion.

 

            “D-did it work?” Jess asked hesitantly.

 

            “I-, what work?” Lena replied, her eyebrows knitting together in a frown.

 

            “Miss Luthor?” Jess asked slowly, hesitating slightly as she took a step towards Lena, whose eyebrows rose in surprise.

 

            “Y-yes,” Lena stuttered, taken aback by Jess’ question.

 

            “Oh God, Kara was telling the truth wasn’t she?” Jess said, her eyes widening as she looked at Lena.

 

            “S-she told you? What was she doing here?”

 

            “She came here to find you,” Jess whispered, her eyes shining as she smiled at Lena. “She said she’d find you on the roof.”

 

            “The roof,” Lena whispered breathlessly, her feet moving on their own accord as she passed Jess and headed towards the elevator. She pushed the the button for the roof and her stomach lurched as it started climbing upwards.

 

            She stepped out of the elevator five minutes later and looked around. It was early in the morning, and the sun hadn’t quite risen enough to breach the top of the skyscrapers packed into the city. The wind was strong as it whipped Lena’s hair around her and tugged at her clothes with invisible fingers. She took a few steps forwards, turning around in a circle as she looked for herself. A slight laugh escaped her as she thought about how weird it would be to meet Kara whilst in Kara’s body, and staring at her own body with Kara inside it.

 

            “Kara,” she shouted, the wind whipping the word away as it left her mouth. She walked to the very edge of the roof, as close as she dared to get to the edge, and set off in one direction. The building was massive; easily spanning the length of a city block, and Lena had no clue where Kara would be.

 

            She stopped a few metres away, shouting out Kara’s name again.

 

            Distantly, she heard a shout.

 

            It was soft, and she barely heard it, even with Kara’s super hearing. It was her name.

 

            “Kara,” Lena whispered breathlessly, running around the edge of the roof in search of Kara.

 

* * *

 

 

            The two figures ran around the edge of the roof, yelling each other’s name and listening to the faint reply in the distance. They both wore matching expressions of panic as they frantically looked around for each other.

 

            “Kara! You’re here aren’t you?”

 

            The shout was closer this time, and Kara looked ahead, trying to find Lena.

 

            “Lena! Where are you?” she yelled back.

 

            She couldn’t see Lena, and Lena couldn’t see Kara either. Her breath coming in ragged gasps, because of the human limitations of Lena’s body, Kara pushed herself to keep going. She was close, she could feel it. She could feel Lena.

 

            Still running, Kara felt an odd feeling pass through her, and stopped in her tracks. It was like an alarm had gone off inside her, sending a shock through her body. Turning around, Kara took a hesitant step forward, reaching out with one hand.

 

            Unbeknownst to Kara, Lena had felt the same feeling and stopped too. She had run straight through Kara, although neither of them knew it because of the different timelines they existed in. They both stood in the exact same spot, the only thing separating them was three years. Reaching forward with shaky fingers, Lena moved forward to where she had felt the funny feeling inside her.

 

            Both of their faces fell in disappointment as their hands reached out into nothingness. There was nothing. No one was there.

 

            Just then, the sun had risen high enough to break out over the edge of the city’s horizon, dazzling them both with the brightness of it shining off the glass windows of the hundreds of skyscrapers around them.

 

            “It’s beautiful.”

 

            “It’s beautiful.”

 

            The whispers came at the same time, taking them both by surprise. A look of disbelief came over their faces at the sound of the other’s voice, so close by. Slowly, they both turned around, and Kara found herself back in her own body, and Lena back in hers.

 

            Green eyes met blue eyes.

 

            Kara gave Lena a smile filled with relief.

 

            “Lena,” she whispered, taking a step closer.

 

            Lena’s eyes filled with tears as she stared back in shock. With shaking hands, she took a step closer. “Kara. Kara, it’s really you.”

 

            Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at Kara with an open mouth, her hands coming up to rest just below Kara’s shoulders, making sure she was real.

 

            “I came to see you,” Kara said, her own eyes filling with tears as she looked down at Lena, “I-it wasn’t easy to find you.”

 

            “H-how did you find me?” Lena asked, reaching up to trace Kara’s cheek with gentle fingers. She’d dreamed of doing that a thousand times, never believing she’d ever see Kara stood in front of her with her own two eyes. Lena had thought she’d be doomed to spend her life staring at Kara’s reflection in the mirror.

 

            “I blew myself up with your machine,” Kara told her with a laugh as she wiped away the tears on Lena’s cheeks. Lena’s gaze fell on the red knotted bracelet that Kara was wearing on her wrist, and she reached up and touched it gently.

 

            “You came to see me before I knew who you were. There was no way I’d recognise you, but I kept this safe for you for the past three years,” Kara said softly, giving Lena a small smile as she took the bracelet off and tied it around Lena’s wrist.

 

            They both looked at each other and laughed at the absurdity of the moment. Kara’s smiled turned sat as she realised why she was here. “Lena, you have to listen to me. Your machine - it connected us through time. I’m three years ahead of you. There’s going to be an explosion here, at LexCorp, tonight. Y-you have to make sure you’re not here. You have to evacuate the building, as many of the ones nearby as you can.”

 

            “An explosion?” Lena whispered softly, a crease forming between her eyebrows.

 

            “Your brother …” Kara trailed off, not knowing how to explain, but Lena nodded. She already knew her brother was going off the rails, and there wasn’t much she could do to stop him.

 

            “I still have time; I’ll make it happen.”

 

            They stared out at the sun, almost fully over the skyline. Kara wasn’t sure how long they would have, and she quickly reached into her pockets, pulling out a pen.

 

            “Hey, Lena,” she said, reaching out for Lena’s hand. “Let’s write our names on each other, so we don’t forget when we wake up. Here.”

 

            She finished writing and handed the pen to Lena, who smiled up at her. “Okay.”

 

            Reaching out for Kara’s hand, she drew the first line and then the pen dropped to the ground. Kara stared blankly at the space Lena had occupied not two seconds ago, her hand still extended towards where she had been standing.

 

            She looked around slightly, her hand dropping to her side. “Lena?”

 

            Kara stared down at the line drawn on the palm of her hand, and gently traced it with a finger. It wasn’t her name; she hadn’t gotten to write it all. Just one line was all Kara had to remember her by. “I wanted to tell you that wherever you are in the world, I’ll search for you,” she whispered, smiling sadly down at her hand.

 

            Staring out at the sun, Kara whispered to herself. “Lena. Your name is Lena, I remember. Lena. Lena. Lena. Your name is Lena. Your name is-“

 

            Her mind went blank. The memories already slipping away. Crouching down, Kara picked up the pen and pressed it to the palm of her left hand. She held the pen there and then hesitated, not knowing what to write.

 

            “Who are you?” she whispered to herself, her eyes overfilling with tears and running down her face. “What are you doing here?”

 

            She looked up at the skyline, wracking her brain as she tried to remember. “I came here to find her,” Kara exclaimed, the pen slipping out of her fingers. “To save her. I wanted her to be alive. Who? Who was it? I can’t remember her name. I don’t want to forget”

 

            She sat on the roof, her head in her hands as she sobbed.

 

            “Who? Who? Who?” she repeated to herself. “What is your name?”

 

* * *

 

            Lena was running. She ran straight across the rooftop, heading for the elevators.

 

            “Kara. Kara. Kara,” she mumbled to herself as she ran. “It’s okay, I remember. I won’t forget. Your name is Kara.”

 

            She got into the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. Her stomach lurched as she dropped fast, the doors eventually opening to the lobby. Stumbling out, Lena spotted Jess walking in through the front door.

 

            “Jess!” Lena shouted, catching the other girl’s attention, along with half of the other people in the lobby.

 

            Jess looked taken aback by Lena’s appearance of sweatpants and a coat. “Miss Luthor.”

 

            “Jess, I need your help,” Lena said, her eyes wide with panic. “We have to evacuate this area of the city. It’s going to be destroyed.”

 

            “Destroyed? I don’t understand,” Jess said, giving Lena a look of concern. “Miss Luthor are you okay?”

 

            “We have to get everyone out of here, now. Go to every building, tell them to clear the area. Pull the fire alarms if you have to, I don’t care,” Lena rambled, grabbing Jess by the shoulders as she looked at her with frantic eyes.

 

            “That’s illegal, miss,” Jess squeaked.

 

            “I don’t fucking care, just do it!” Lena all but yelled at her, letting Jess go and running to the front desk to tell the receptionist to announce it to the building. The receptionist gave her an odd look, taking in the wild appearance of the youngest Luthor. At her refusal, Lena stormed over to the elevators, pressing the button for one of the sub-basements.

 

            Winding her way through the machines and pipes, Lena found the row of generators powering the building. She found the nearest wrench and started smashing up the machines. Eventually she gave up, and Lena collapsed to the ground, exhausted. She realised it was no good. She’d have to blow up the electricity company and shut the power off for most of the city. That was the only way she could evacuate the area. With a frustrated yell, Lena kicked and punched the the wall.

 

            She didn’t know how to save them all.

 

\---

 

            She spent hours, running back and forth, trying to get the surrounding companies to listen to her. But nobody did. Eventually, as the sun was setting, Lena decided to take the advice she’d given to Jess, and started pulling the fire alarms in every building she got into. There was no other option.

 

            Slowly but surely, hundreds of people were streaming out of the surrounding buildings, and the streets filled with fire trucks and police cars, hopelessly searching for non-existent fires and trying to keep everyone calm.

 

            Running back towards LexCorp, Lena pulled her phone out of her pocket and rang Jess. She got her to pull the fire alarm there too, before it was too late. It was already getting dark and the news stations were starting to broadcast Superman and Batman fighting each other.

 

            She had been right; the city was being destroyed.

 

            Fighting her way against the flow of people heading towards her, Lena couldn’t help but try and remember who had been right. Who had told her to evacuate? Who?

 

            She couldn’t remember.

 

            She finally broke through the crowd and ran through Heroes Plaza. Lena was alone now, everyone else had cleared the area, and Lena was running down the empty sidewalk as fast as she could. Her mind was preoccupied by thoughts of the person she couldn’t remember. Her breathing was ragged, and Lena wasn’t watching where she was putting her feet.

 

            Her foot got caught on a part of the sidewalk sticking up out of the ground. With a quiet gasp of surprise, Lena tumbled to the ground, grazing her knees and hands on the rough pavement. She lay there for a moment, catching her breath. That was when she heard the voice of a girl flicker across her mind.

 

_"Let’s write our names on each other, so we don’t forget when we wake up."_

 

            Lena uncurled her hands, looking down at the shallow scratched on her palms. On one of them she could make out writing in black ink.

 

_I love you_

 

            Lena felt as if she had been punched in the chest. All of the air in her lungs was forced out of her and she let out a sob. A tear sliding down her cheek as she stared at the three words carefully written on her hand.

 

            Pushing herself to her feet, Lena sobbed. She carefully cupped the hand to her chest as tears spilled down her face. “I can’t remember your name with this,” she choked out.

 

            Pulling herself together, she wiped at her face with her other hand and set off running again. She had to get to LexCorp. She had to make sure Jess had pulled the alarm. To make sure everyone was okay.

 

            She saw streams of people exiting the building, and let out a sob of relief. There was Jess at the front of the crowd, staring at her with a smile on her face, and concern in her eyes as she took in Lena’s ragged appearance.

 

            “Jess!” Lena yelled, running towards her as she tried to catch her breath.

 

            With the rest of the crowd, Lena started heading in the opposite direction, making her way as far away from LexCorp as she could. She silently prayed she would have enough time to make it far enough away from the building.

 

            It was already dark.

 

* * *

 

            It didn’t take long for the screaming to start as a giant alien monster launched itself at LexCorp, perching on the roof and letting out a roar of anger. The helicopter fired at it, and an orange glow started in the chest of the monster. The blast radiated outwards, annihilating everything in its path and painting the city in a fiery orange.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: If you haven't watched the film you might think this is rushed and the time jump is odd, but I tried to follow the general plot of the film as closely as I could so. (The film actually skips 5 years so I think I was nicer tbh.)
> 
> I hope this fic hasn't been too confusing, and please check out the film. Thank you.

            Kara walked down the sidewalk, scanning every face she walked past, as was her habit. She wasn’t sure why she did this when she was walking past strangers. A part of her was hoping that she would find something, or someone. Something to fill the emptiness she’d been feeling for as long as she could remember.

 

            She’d gone to Metropolis over a year ago, for some reason, and since then it had been like Kara had this hole inside. It was like she was searching for someone that she’d left behind, but she couldn’t remember who. Alex and Maggie had said they’d gone to Metropolis for a break, to do some sightseeing. That was the only explanation they could come up with to explain why they were in the city. Kara knew it was something else though, but she couldn’t remember.

 

            She caught the glimpse of a dark haired woman weaving through the crowd and Kara’s heart started racing. Apologising, she pushed people out of the way, until she broke through the crowd.

 

            Nothing.

 

            It was just a trick of the light.

 

            Kara stared down at the palm of her right hand, frowning in confusion. She was missing something. Always searching for something. The need to look had possessed her for over a year. Everywhere she went she felt the urge to search for the missing piece of her, not knowing what it was she was looking for.

 

            She wasn’t sure if she was searching for a person or a place.

 

            Her phone buzzed, and she looked down at the message from Alex lighting up her screen.

 

\---

 

            Kara pushed the door to the café open, the bell signalling her arrival. She saw her sister sat alone at their usual table in the corner, and assumed that Maggie was at work.

 

            “Hey,” Alex smiled at her as her shadow fell across the table.

 

            “Hey, did you want another coffee?” Kara asked, waiting for Alex’s nod before walking over to the counter to order.

 

            “Jess!” the barista called out, handing over a tray holding two coffees to the young woman waiting off to the side. Kara looked at the woman, frowning slightly as the name triggered something inside Kara’s mind. She felt like she knew the woman.

 

            Without looking at Kara, the woman left the café, and Kara’s attention was brought back to the barista asking if she needed some help. With a smile, she placed her coffee order and went to sit back down at their table. Alex was watching something on the TV as Kara sat down.

 

            “Four years since the battle at Metropolis,” Alex said, her gaze shifting from the TV to her sister sat before her. “We went to Metropolis last year didn’t we? In the summer?”

 

            “Yes,” Kara agreed, trying to think about their trip. A year wasn’t so long ago.

 

            “It feels like I’ve forgotten so much about that trip,” Alex mused, thanking the barista who set a coffee down in front of her. Kara mumbled her thanks, pulling her own cup towards her.

 

            “I still don’t know how you went from drinking your sugary, fancy mochaccino, frappuccino whatever, to black coffee,” Alex said, eyeing her sister as she took a sip of the bitter drink. She shrugged Alex’s comment off, not understanding herself why she had taken to drinking black coffee when she’d hated it before.

 

            Kara was busy thinking about Metropolis. She too couldn’t remember much from their trip, even though it had been just over eighteen months ago. She couldn’t even remember what had happened between her, Alex and Maggie. Maybe they’d had a disagreement; the other two returned to National City without her. All Kara knew was that she’d spent the day alone on the rooftop of some building, but she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because it was the building where her cousin fought Doomsday four years ago. Whatever the reason, Kara had found herself inexplicably drawn to the events surrounding that day.

 

            The alien monster had destroyed the top of LexCorp, and wiped out the surrounding buildings in the explosion. Most of the employees and people in the area were miraculously unhurt. A few hours before disaster struck, the fire alarms had been pulled in that area of the city, and a mass evacuation was already happening. There were only a couple deaths and a few dozen injured thanks to most people being outside the blast zone. No one knew how the fire alarms had gone off in all those buildings that day, there was some speculation as to whether there had been an accident with the alarms, but either way, thousands of lives had been saved.

 

            Kara had intently read those articles when she came back from Metropolis, but she wasn’t sure what had originally caught her interest. She didn’t know anyone in Metropolis, except for her cousin, and she knew he was safe, having regenerated after the fight.

 

\---

 

            Alex said goodbye to Kara that night, watching her sister leave her apartment and make her way downstairs. Kara walked outside into the cold night, her breath visible in the air before her as she pulled her coat tightly around her. It was almost Christmas; it would be snowing soon.

 

            She looked down at her hand, feeling the emptiness inside her.

 

            It started raining as she made her way home, walking slowly and letting the rain drench her. Her feet splashed in the puddles as she wandered along, making her way over the bridge. A few metres away, someone with an umbrella was walking towards her, their face hidden from the rain.

 

            As Kara passed the person, she felt a jolt run through her body, as if a bell had gone off in her mind. She carried on walking for a few more steps before stopping and turning to look at the woman. She never looked back, she just kept on walking with her umbrella sheltering her from the rain.

 

            Kara turned back around and kept walking, the sinking feeling of disappointment welling up inside her. She didn’t see the woman turn around and watch her walk away, her green eyes looking at Kara’s back curiously.

 

\---

 

            Spring came, and with it so did the blooming flowers and sunny weather.

 

            Kara got ready for work, realising she was running late. She’d have to take the subway today to make it on time. She could have flown, but she knew her powers weren’t for something trivial like this.

 

            Leaving her apartment, Kara made her way down to the nearest subway entrance. She bought a ticket and made her way onto the next train. It soon filled up, and she found herself pressed up against the window. She looked up, finding herself staring at the train on the opposite tracks, heading in the other direction.

 

            Her eyes widened with shock, and she let out a quiet gasp as she looked at the person leaning against the window on the other train. She looked up, her eyes meeting Kara’s and widening with shock.

 

            Green eyes met blue eyes.

 

            Kara knew it then that what she had always been searching for was a person. She was searching for someone. Someone with those green eyes.

 

            She pressed her hand against the window and watched in alarm as the train on the opposite track started moving at the same time Kara’s did. She stared into those eyes once more before their gaze was ripped apart, and they both shot off in different directions.

 

            Kara fought her way through the people crowding onto the train and got off at the next stop. Running, she made her way through the station, pushing through the crowds of people streaming in.

 

            Outside the station, Kara looked around, trying to find the right direction. She set off down the street, her legs carrying her as fast as she could whilst still appearing human. Her hands itched to tear her clothes from her body and fly so she could get there faster. At each intersection, Kara hesitated, scanning the crowd for that face. For those eyes. Then she would set off in the most probable direction for the train heading in the other direction. She would find her. No matter what.

 

            Kara came to a halt at the bottom of a set of stairs, her gaze landing on the woman stood at the top of them. She was breathing heavily too, as if she had run from the train station. Her eyebrows were raised slightly in surprise, and her mouth opened as if she was going to call out to Kara. But she didn’t.

 

            Kara got her expression under control and started walking up the stairs, looking down at her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman start walking down the steps on the other side of the railing cutting the staircase in half. They passed each other halfway, and Kara felt a panic rise within her.

 

            She had to say something. This was the person she had been looking for. She couldn’t let her get away again. She was so familiar, as if Kara knew her better than she knew herself.

 

            Reaching the top of the stairs, Kara stopped. Taking a deep breath, she turned around.

 

            “Hey!” she called out, looking at the dark hair and the back of the woman as she descended the steps. Kara saw her back stiffen and her head look up from her feet at Kara’s shout.

 

            “Haven’t we met?” Kara asked.

 

            Lena turned around slowly, tears spilling down her cheeks as she gave Kara a tearful smile, full of happiness.

 

            “I thought so too.”

 

            Kara let out a tearful laugh, tears making their way down her own cheeks. They stared at each other for a moment, at a loss for words.

 

            And then they both spoke at the same time.

 

            “What’s your name?”

 

            “What’s your name?”


End file.
